Dáire O'Leary and Watergrasshill hoping to scale new heights

When Watergrasshill won the third-tier hurling championship in Cork in 2004, it was the first year after the splitting of the intermediate grade.

Winning the IHC sent them up to the Premier IHC, but it did not afford them entry into the AIB Munster Club IHC. While they did make it to the PIHC final in 2007, they lost to Carrigtwhoill and could not make it back to that stage again until this year.

Centre-back Dáire O’Leary has been excellent throughout the season for Watergrasshill and he feels the pivotal segment of Sunday’s final win over Carrigaline, when they scored an unanswered 1-5, showed what the team can do.

“We seemed to kick on from there,” he said.

“That goal from Seánie, it was definitely a big help – it put us up six and then we kicked on. We’ve a serious team with serious potential and I don’t think that this is the end of it, to be honest.

We can definitely compete in Senior A next year and, to be honest, I don’t see us being any walkover in the Munster championship, either.

“Wolfe Tones will be good, they’ve a few Clare hurlers but we’ll look forward to it – we’ll enjoy our celebrations and resume during the week.”

DOUBLE

For O’Leary and team-mates Aidan Foley, Kevin O’Neill, Michael O’Driscoll, Adam Murphy, Seán Desmond and Brendan Lehane, the Premier IHC was their second medal win over the year, having already been part of the Imokilly squad that claimed the Premier SHC.

“It feels unreal, genuinely,” he said.

“It’s after topping off the year completely, doing the double with Imokilly and Watergrasshill.

“At the start of the year, we met, trying to get Eddie [Enright] to be our manager. We hadn’t got over the line in previous years, getting a lot of draws, but we knew that there was savage potential there.

“It’s unreal, an unbelievable feeling, to be honest.”

Tipperary native Enright, an All-Ireland winner in 2001, had managed the Hill in 2018 and 2019 and his return was key in going all the way.

“He was with us before,” he said, “though I was a bit younger and so I wasn’t involved.

We came to him and he was 100%, he got everything sorted. All the lads in the background, he had very good coaches and S&Cs involved.

“Everyone got on board and you can see the results now.”

Those results had not been bad in the years prior – but five wins and a draw across 2022 and 2023 had meant they had not qualified for the knockout stage in either year.

“We sat back a lot in previous years,” O’Leary said, “defending games rather than attacking as we should have been, because we have serious pace and serious forwards.

“Adam Murphy is a great addition this year again, it’s great to have him back. We just went at teams this year instead of letting them come back at us and I think that that benefited us big-time, as you could see out there.”

For Cork panellist O’Leary, two championship medals point to the benefit of an injury-free year and now he is keen to push on.

“A 100%, yeah,” he said. “I was kind of caught with injuries the last couple of years. I’ve done a lot of work, personally and mentally as well with mental coaches.

It’s just been about getting back up to speed, back to where I was in 2022. I didn’t come back fit enough in 2023 and it showed.

“These things happen but I’d like to push forward, going forward. I don’t see what’s stopping it now, to be perfectly honest.

“There’s a good few lads there putting their hands up there now as well.”