Silverware on show as Sarsfields hail great year in hurling and camogie

The new season is just around the corner for Sarsfields, with Kanturk providing the opposition in Sunday morning’s RedFM Hurling League Division 1 opener.

Last year, the Riverstown club won the league before completing the double as they won the Co-op SuperStores Cork Premier SHC for the first time in nine years. Add in the county championship victory for the club’s camogie side and there was much to celebrate at the recent dinner-dance at Vienna Woods Hotel.

While the focus is on what’s to come, senior hurling manager Johnny Crowley knows it was important to acknowledge the fine achievements.

“It’s a new calendar year, it’s a blank canvas, you start at the bottom,” he says.

It’s as simple as that, it’s a whole new competition, a whole new year. We only went back last Thursday fortnight and we’ve had four or five sessions since, so we’ve very little done.

“We had the dinner-dance last Saturday night and that was good. It’s important to have that expression of victory, too.

“When you consider that the club has been in existence for 120-odd years and we’ve only seven county titles, when you do win it, you should enjoy it.”

Sars won their first seven league games last year, only suffering defeat against Douglas after their place in the final had been secured. In the decider, they beat Blackrock and then carried that momentum into the championship.

“Genuinely, we didn’t focus on winning the league or the championship last year,” Crowley says, “we focused on games.

“We were trying to build a system and patterns of play and, more than anything, trying to build a culture of what our group is about.

“Early on, it was about getting good results and then we got to the league final, which was fantastic. Bar the older guys like Conor and Eoin O’Sullivan, Daniel and Willie Kearney, Daniel Roche and Craig Leahy, none of the lads had won anything for Sars on the field of play.

“To win with that group was very important, as it transpired, in terms of giving belief. At the start of the year, we didn’t have the league in our thoughts but, as it went on, it was very good to us.

“Likewise this year, we’re playing our first game on Sunday against Kanturk and we’re only a few sessions in. We’re taking it as it comes.”

While they are without a couple of experienced heads, Crowley hopes that is offset by an injection of youth.

“Willie Kearney and Eoin O’Sullivan, due to work commitments, are taking a break from it at the moment,” he says.

“Other than that, we should have everybody back. We do have a few injuries, which is natural for this time of year, and a few guys who need three or four weeks’ conditioning but that’s part of the whole thing.

“We’ve brought in a few younger lads seven or eight guys from the U21s, and it’s about teaching them the wrongs and rights of senior hurling and providing a pathway to play senior hurling.

“It’s about developing that culture that we created last year. We’re going to have to improve on last year – we certainly have no intention of standing still and so we have to go to the next level again.”