Shane Barrett: There are still positives to take from the campaign

Shane Barrett was a key figure in Pat Ryan’s Cork senior hurling team with his pace at centre-forward transforming the Rebels this season.

The 23-year-old is currently in the thick of club action, with Blarney in the quarter-final of the Co-Op SuperStores SAHC this Sunday when they face Killeagh in Midleton at 2pm.

In the midst of a busy schedule, he took time out to accept a well-deserved individual accolade, becoming the latest winner of the EPH Controls/Muskerry GAA Sports Star award.

Family members, friends, playing colleagues, Donal McSweeney of the Cork County Board and Donal O’Mahony, selector with the Cork senior hurlers, were all in attendance at the Lee Valley Golf and Country Club in Ovens recently.

Nearly two months on from the heartbreaking All-Ireland final defeat to Clare, it will still take time for Barrett to get over the loss, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it either when speaking to The Echo.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, obviously it was extremely disappointing,” he says.

“On the day, Clare were the better team, 100 percent. They definitely deserved to win the game. Look, all we can do now is go back training whenever we go back in a few months’ time and just try and get better and go after the 2025 season. The main thing is to try and improve and build on what happened in the final this year and get around each other and go again. There are still lots of positives to take from the campaign. The biggest one was probably our reaction after losing to Waterford and Clare in the first two group games in Munster. A lot of people wrote us off after that. We gained momentum and that win against Limerick down the Páirc really drove us on.

“We had that consistency in performances, which was a big thing for us after the slow start. Supporters were down in the dumps and we were a small bit as well after losing the first two games in the Munster championship. Everyone knows how competitive it is. After the Clare defeat, we looked at it in the sense that Limerick were next up down the Páirc. Saturday night games in Páirc Uí Chaoimh are always huge. We needed no motivation as we wanted to do ourselves justice.” 

There was a connection between the Cork team and the fans this year for the first time in quite a while. The support the hurlers got was on another scale helped by that memorable win over Limerick in the Munster championship. It just snowballed from there and Barrett has nothing but praise for the Cork faithful.

“Momentum plays a huge part I think. It was just brilliant and the fans drove us on a lot,” he said.

“When the fans are on our side it makes all the difference. I’ll never forget the Tipperary game above in Thurles after the Limerick win, whatever about the scoreline that day, the stadium was just a sea of red. They pretty much sold out Thurles by themselves. Every venue we went to after that in fairness to the fans, they were right behind us. It was almost like a circus outside the camp. They help us a lot and hopefully they will stick with us for next season and so on and so forth.

“There was a thing out there that the Cork players believed in the hype before the All-Ireland final but that definitely wasn’t the case. We knew ourselves what we had to focus on. Whatever people were doing externally, none of us inside the camp knew what was going on. We didn’t let any of the hype creep in. We were level headed and focused on the job. Although the fans' momentum was fantastic, we didn’t allow it to eat into us or anything like that.” 

Attention at the moment for Barrett is on Blarney as they bid to go one better after losing the final of the SAHC last year after a replay to Newcestown. They have been ticking along nicely in 2024, winning their three group games against Carrigtwohill, Courcey Rovers and Na Piarsaigh with Killeagh next up this weekend in the quarter-final.

“We have had a nice player turnover since the county final last season,” he says.

“We have about five or six lads on the panel that we didn’t have last year, so it was nice to set out our stall early against Carrigtwohill in the first game. We are very lucky to have Gavin O’Mahony as our coach. He has been excellent. After the defeat in the final last year, it was important to keep hold of Gavin as he was implementing a plan that was going to take time. I would put him up there as one of the top coaches that I have ever had. Hopefully we can keep him for as long as possible.

“Obviously when you're in the Senior A grade, the goal is to go up to Premier Senior and we are no different. But we are under no illusions about how tough it will be.”