Seoirse Bulfin on Charleville's escape act: It's a funny old system you have down here in Cork...
Charleville’s Darren Butler continues to chase even after losing his hurley against Bishopstown. Picture: Chani Anderson
While nobody wants to have the tag attached to them, Charleville are proving to be survival experts in the Co-op Superstores Cork PSHC.
On Saturday in Grenagh they played in their third such game in four seasons and once again they had the Midas touch as they recorded a comfortable 3-24 to 1-18 win over Bishopstown. Tim Hawe was their hat-trick hero and their manager, Seoirse Bulfin, thought that his first two goals made life in the most difficult of circumstances that bit easier.
“At the end of the day, these games, as you said, are never easy to play in. But goals will generally settle these types of games and the two in the first half were key. It gave us that little bit of a cushion at half time. Now, we knew they were going to come with everything again in the second half, but it was a big help having the two-goal lead at half time. Ultimately, they never gave up and they still got their two late goals.
That they aren’t. And Bishopstown were intent on making it as uncomfortable as possible. They were just about hanging onto Charleville’s coattails in the second half before Hawe intervened again with his third goal, which was the pick of the bunch.
A very good goal. He’s seven goals got in four games, so he’s a very good finisher. It probably killed the game as a contest. Then the wind too. They stayed plugging away, but you were 12 or 13 points up at that stage, so you did have that cushion. But you need it.
"You knew coming into the game that you’d want all of it. It was hugely important. You needed the third goal, really, to kill it off. You didn’t want it to be hanging around six or seven points going into the last 10 minutes.”
Charleville have still had a good season. They reached the Division 1 league final that they lost to Sarsfield’s. They could not afford, however, to rest on their laurels coming into this one. Their attitude needed to be right, they couldn’t be feeling sorry for themselves.
“It's a funny old system you have down here in Cork! We knew exactly the layout of the championship beforehand so there’s no complaints there.
"We got to a league final, but the good thing about us with the league was that you were only missing Darragh Fitzgibbon. You’re coming up against teams in Division 1 that are probably missing three or four guys every day you go out who are involved in the county team. So, the league was very, very good, the championship group was going to be tough. You could have got easier ones; you could have got harder ones.
"The day helped, conditions were decent, a very good pitch here in Grenagh so once we got our attitude right and we felt if were going to perform like we did the last day against Kanturk, where we performed very, very well – we could have got a draw and have been finished two weeks ago! – but we knew if we got our attitude right and we performed we’d probably be there or thereabouts.”
The trick is now, for Charleville, to avoid being back in this situation again in 2025.
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