Liscarroll/Churchtown Gaels footballers looking up after brilliant season 

Tony O'Flaherty believes the future is bright for Liscarroll/Churchtown Gaels.

The North Cork side have been under that umbrella since 2016 when there was an amalgamation between Liscarroll and Churchtown. 

They apply their trade in the Avondhu Junior A ranks in both codes and have been very competitive in recent seasons. The footballers won their divisional championship title this year for the first time before losing narrowly to Ballygarvan in the county quarter-final.

O’Flaherty was the coach of the team this season as they made history. 

“It was a fantastic campaign,” he says.

“As well as winning the Avondhu championship, we also won the Division 1 football league in North Cork. We beat Killavullen by a point after extra time which set us up nicely then for the championship. It was possibly the club’s first significant trophy at adult level.

“We hadn’t been too far away in recent seasons, but it all came together this year. Beating Charleville in the North Cork championship final was a huge deal for us. We won it on a Tuesday night and we had to play Ballygarvan in the county quarter-final the following weekend. Some of our lads had to play five games in 20 days between Junior and U21 competitions.

“At Junior A football level, we had three games in nine days. I don’t want this to turn out like sour grapes at all, but we were beaten by the better team on the day against Ballygarvan. But, we feel if we had a little bit more time, we could have had a better chance. I have always been complimentary towards the Cork County Board for everything they do, but it’s just a pity that we didn’t have time to recover from winning the Avondhu on the Tuesday. Going out to play Ballygarvan the following Sunday was tough.” 

O’Flaherty has no doubt that the future is bright for the club with the aim of retaining the North Cork JAFC title in 2025.

“Overall, we have a young team,” he said.

“All we can do is keep doing our best. We have a wonderful panel. They are great lads to train. They have bought into the new club motto. We respect the new club crest and we want to make it proud going forward. We have good numbers coming through and from a club point of view, all you want to do is to get those young lads coming through to fulfil their potential and wherever that takes us, it takes us.

“The club has a fierce obligation, a duty of care is what I would say, in terms of looking after all of our players off the pitch as well. Sometimes, managers and coaches zone in on trying to win a championship at all costs. That’s a goal but we also must realise that players have an awful lot going on away from the pitch. It’s important to help all of our players and if they ever want to chat about anything, we try and help them out in any way that we can.

“If we do the business on the pitch and look after ourselves off it, the results will take care of itself. We would love to retain the Avondhu championship trophy next year, but we need to keep working hard.”