Killeagh one win away from first East Cork JAHC title since 1995

After Glen Rovers suffered relegation from the Premier Senior hurling championship last year, they became the first side since before the change in championship format to have a first team not in the top grade and a second team also competing in the county championships.

But given their relegation was such a shock, and preventable – it’s not much of a surprise.

Should they win against Blarney in tomorrow’s SAHC decider, that will likely change.

But Killeagh can potentially stop that change – assuming they defeat Carraig na bhFear in their upcoming East Cork Oil Junior A HC final and go on to win the county.

It’s a big ask of course, and something they won’t even consider until after the final on October 27.

But there are a few reasons why Killeagh could be the club to do it.

A big factor in that is the restriction on underage players playing in the county championships, and while it’s hurt their seniors – it’s benefited their junior hurlers.

As the restriction doesn’t apply to junior teams, Killeagh’s squad has been bolstered by several minor hurling stars, including Cork U20s Barry and Ben Walsh, who certainly would have been involved in the SAHC if allowed to play.

For Killeagh forward Davy Kelleher, it’s been a welcome boost.

“As young as they are, you can see the experience that they have from being coached at intercounty level in minor and U20,” Kelleher begins. “You can see their game day performances are massive, and it really shows the coaching that they're coming with from Cork as well.

I think that benefits us big time as well.

“We’ve Fionn Murphy in goal, Sean Meade playing corner-forward for us as well, and they both played Cork minor.

“We’ve Conor Byrne then as well on the panel, so we’ve plenty of young lads coming up through, and it’s just about trying to give everyone game time throughout the year.

“Obviously, Ben and Barry were busy with the Cork U20s, so it was hard to get full sessions with the juniors, but we’ve just tried to make it work as best we can.” 

ONE GROUP

Another asset to the team has been their joint training sessions with the seniors all year, which has raised the levels of the Junior A team across the board.

“Just having that one big group, everyone's backing each other,” Davy explains. “Even a couple of trainings there leading up to the semi-final, we had a couple of seniors, even though they were knocked out.

They came down training with us, giving back what we gave to them all year, and that certainly helps big time.

“There’s a good buzz around the club at the moment, because we’ve got some exciting players coming up through the teams, so everyone wants to be involved and be part of the setup.

“Certainly, training with the seniors, and the way Bryan [McCarthy] has it set up, we’re going pretty well.

“It's been a good campaign for us on this so far. We had Carraig na bhFear first day out, and they beat us, but we were reasonably happy with our performance that day.

“I felt like we showed that we could compete with them anyway, even though we lost,” he says. “The other games went pretty well for us, we’d a few up and down performances, but overall, our fitness came through in the end, and we powered on.” 

With the Jamesy Kelleher Cup on the line, it all comes down to the final in Castlemartyr. Not since 1995 have Killeagh won the East Cork Junior A HC.

“We’re as confident as Carraig na bhFear are,” Kelleher remarks. “We’ve come through every challenge since losing to Carraig na bhFear in the first group game, and we hope to keep that going and we know now that we can compete with them.

“We've kind of met them in the last few years and they've gotten the better of us. Not handy, but they won convincingly. They definitely didn’t beat us convincingly this year.

“So, we're fairly confident we can certainly put it up to them, give it a right crack and hopefully get over the line.”