IAFC final: Hurt of last year driving Boherbue's bid for glory as they face Glanmire

The fact that Boherbue have reached the 2024 McCarthy Insurance Group IAFC final is a remarkable one.

The Duhallow club face Glanmire on Saturday in the decider at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh (5.30pm). They were trailing by six points to Adrigole with 10 minutes remaining in the semi-final last Saturday week as spectators were heading for the exits. Boherbue turned it around to win 1-9 to 0-11.

Also, Boherbue would have been underdogs going into that game and wouldn’t have been one of the favourites for the championship before a ball was kicked at the start of the campaign. They lost by four points to Dromtarriffe in the quarter-final last year.

Boherbue’s Gerry O’Sullivan says they have used the hurt from the 2023 campaign to drive their bid for glory this season.

“We felt we let ourselves down last year,” he said.

“We just didn’t perform on the day against Dromtarriffe and we were coming back then this season wondering where we were at. It was disappointing the way it ended. The main thing at the start of any season is trying to improve on the year before. We went back training in January and I suppose the main goal was to win the county, the same as every other team. First of all, we wanted to right the wrongs of last year.

“Your just trying to get better and better and see where it takes you then. It has brought us to a county final, which is an improvement on last year, but realistically, it won’t be worth anything unless we get the win.” 

It's a novel final pairing with Glanmire also after coming under the radar after a challenging few years for them. It will be the second time this season that the teams will have crossed paths in championship. Glanmire won by a point in the final group stage meeting. O’Sullivan is expecting a very difficult assignment.

“We have met Glanmire a good few times over the years with last month's meeting still fresh in the memory. Glanmire are a very good side, well balanced. Every game takes a life of its own. The previous meeting won’t have any bearing.

“Glanmire were probably hungrier and performed better last month, so we will have to play to the best that we can now on Saturday and see where it takes us.” 

Boherbue know they will have to improve significantly from their one-point win over Adrigole last time out. While they did finish strong in the last 10 minutes, the first 50 minutes won’t be good enough on Saturday evening.

“It was a funny kind of game against Adrigole. We just didn’t perform for the majority of it, and you're trying to plug away seeing if we can get something out of the game. We got a goal and it gave us a new spark of life. John Corkery has been a big player for us for many years and he came up with the goal. The most rewarding thing from the game was that we never moved away from our principles.

“We never panicked and stuck to the game plan and got a bit of luck to get over the line. But we know if we perform like that again against Glanmire, we won’t be winning the match.”