Killavullen one win away from first ever hurling county

Killavullen are one win away from competing the Premier Junior Hurling Championship.

Rewind to just over one month ago. Paul O’Sullivan sent over the winning score to down Harbour Rovers in the north Cork Junior A Hurling Championship final. That score and that title win marked their first ever.

It was also a first junior A final appearance since 1929.

For Tipperary native Niall Hanrahan, who is in his first year as manager of the team, it couldn’t have gone any better.

“Our main aim at the start of the year was to get to a final and hopefully win it because it had never been done in the history of the club,” he begins. “We got out of the group stage, which was hard enough because we were in a group with Glanworth [Harbour Rovers].

“We beat Araglen, we were quite lucky to beat Charleville, and that meant we were safe. Then Glanworth turned us over, because they had to win their match.

“Then we’d a tough draw, we had Clyda Rovers, a big physical team. We got through that by a point, we beat a Liscarroll [Churchtown Gaels] team that were going well. We were down eight points and we turned that around and won by three. And then we met Glanworth, and we’d a right game.

“We scored in the last minute, with the last puck of the ball to win it, after being a point down a minute earlier,” Hanrahan explains. “It was a game that could have gone either way, and luckily we got out to the right side of it.

To win it was fantastic, it was a tough championship to win.

“The last two years previous to us, two finalists have come from Avondhu, both Glanworth and Kilshannig have been in the final.

It's a very competitive championship in hurling, so we're absolutely thrilled to get over it and it’s our first time ever winning it. So as you can imagine, the village went crazy after.” As remarkable as the divisional achievement turned out to be – Killavullen have kept winning.

Now, all that lies in their way is a Tracton team led by former Cork manager Kieran Kingston. Not only have Tracton previously been as far as the PJHC final, but the team are looking to become the first relegated premier junior side to fight their way back up.

“We have a good group of fierce, honest guys, who were kind of going under the radar out there,” Hanrahan admits. “A lot of people mightn’t even know where Killavullen is and we have never been in this position before.

“We know Tracton and the pedigree they have. Three years ago they were in a final against Ballygiblin. We've been underdogs since nearly the quarter-finals of the Avondhu stage and we'll just keep going about our business,” he remarks. “There's a solid group of young fellas there and it doesn't seem to faze them at the moment.

OPPORTUNITY

“The chance to play in a final is huge. They might never get this chance again. So we’re going in with the intent of going out there and giving it everything you have.

“We’re just delighted to be here, and have that chance.” While coming into the final as an underdog, that’s no issue for Killavullen. They’ve already won one final this year with the odds against. For Hanrahan, there’s no reason they can’t do that again.

“We knew Glanworth. We seemed to be a very good 50 minute team last year. We just seemed to fall away in games and lose by three or four points.

“We had already played them in the in the group stage, so we knew what they had, they knew what we had and I'm sure they expected a tough game as well. It was a great final.

We're after having two good wins there now.

“In the quarter-final we beat Dromtarriffe, we didn’t start well, but we got the north Cork win out of our system and got to grips with it and we got over the line.

“We played Killeagh then who have serious hurling pedigree, the boys weren’t fazed by it. We lead all the way, we never let Killeagh go ahead of us. They came back level and we kicked on again.”