Eddie Murphy challenges Carrigaline hurlers to build on league title

After a double league success, Carrigaline hurling coach Eddie Murphy is keen for the club to translate their form to the championship.

On Thursday night, the south-east club beat St Finbarr’s by 2-202 to 1-16 at Páirc Uí Rinn to claim the RedFM Hurling League Division 2 title, on the back of the Division 1 football win of the previous weekend.

Murphy was delighted with the performance against a premier senior side, the culmination of a fine campaign.

“A final in Páirc Uí Rinn is different,” he says, “there’s a lot of prestige.

“Any time you play the Barrs, you’re going to learn they’re a great club. The likes of Jack Cahalane there is a serious operator, Willie Buckley, too – they have great players but I’m very proud of the players we have.

At the start of the year, my initial aim was to stay in Division 2. We beat Bride Rovers in the first game and it mushroomed after that.

“It took off then and we won games and began to get closer to promotion. The club are delighted, we’re up to Division 1 now and I think that we can hold our own there.

“To get to a final against the Barrs is incredible, they’re a great club that we all look up to and they have a fantastic management team.”

Fifteen points from Brian Kelleher were central along with a pair of Kevin O’Reilly goals in the second half, after the Barrs had narrowed the gap coming up to half-time.

“At half-time, we changed things around,” Murphy said.

“We brought on three players and we tried to add a bit more pace around the middle and go more man-for-man.

“If you give the Barrs room, you’re going to be in trouble as they have tremendous hurlers. We tried to close it down as much as we could and get our matchups right. We were well on top for a lot of the second half but in the last 10 minutes it was hairy enough. The pride that’s in the Barrs, they’ll never give up – they’re a terrific club.

HISTORIC

“I think that these players in Carrigaline are writing their own history. They won the Division 1 football league last week and now have got promoted to Division 1 in hurling for the first time. It’s great times for Carrigaline and the secret now is to bring our league form into the championship.”

He accepts that that objective won’t be easily achieved, though.

“We’re in a very tough group for the championship,” he said, “we’ve Watergrasshill, Valleys, Castlemartyr and they’re all hard games.

“We have to carry our league form in – a lot of people say that Carrigaline a league team only and we have to prove now that we’re also a championship team.

“I think we proved on Thursday night that we’re a very good hurling side but you’ve got to be able to sustain that in championship, too.

Championship will be tougher, more physical, and every game we play from now on is going to be very difficult. We’re under no illusions about that.

“At the same time, we’re after winning Division 2 – run superbly by RedFM, it’s a great league, absolutely brilliant, so well-run and we got so much benefit from it. I think we have to bring our form now into the championship.

“We’re trying to strengthen the panel and 20 fellas got game-time on Thursday night. We wouldn’t have as many hurlers in the club as footballers and I would hope that this would be a catalyst for youngsters in the club to take up hurling.