'Hunger not an issue' as Ballinascarthy hurlers aim to get back to West Cork final in 2025

For a number of years, Ballinascarthy’s hurlers have been the biggest presence in the Carbery Junior A Hurling Championship.

Winning the West Cork title against Kilbree in 2019, they lost out to Carraig na bhFear in the 2019 county semi-final. They defeated St Mary’s in 2021 and hammered Newcestown in the 2022 final.

But again they were unable to get to a county final, losing at the quarter-final stage in ’21 and the semi-final in ’22.

Extra time heartbreak followed in their divisional semi-final with Clonakilty in ’23, and last year was even tougher to take for Ballinascarthy. A final replay defeat to Diarmuid Ó Mathúna’s meant the county grades remained a step too far for another year.

For Ballinascarthy defender Ciarán Nyhan – that defeat was deeply disheartening.

“We were very disappointed with how our championship ended after having a good league last year and winning the league,” he begins. ‘We felt we were on a good platform going into the championship.

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“Hunger definitely isn’t an issue this year with us, we know what we want to do. We want to win the championship. That’s what everyone wants to do, we want to get back to a west Cork final.” 

Getting back to a west Cork final is no easy feat – but Ballinascarthy do benefit from their position in the county leagues, with the club competing in the sixth tier in 2025. The 25-year-old feels it’s been hugely beneficial.

“The biggest change is just different oppositions. We’re playing different teams now that we wouldn’t have been playing before, even in challenge games.

“You take back home in the Carbery league, we’d know a lot of lads we’re playing in most teams around the place, even going to school with them and everything,” Nyhan says. “It’s just nice to play different teams, go to different facilities and pitches.

“The more teams we play, the more it brings us on.

“You’re coming up against very strong first teams, very strong second teams. You go look at any second team in Division 6, you’re looking at Na Piarsaigh, Glen Rovers, Sarsfields.

“The three of them are very strong hurling clubs and a lot of those lads would be training with their first teams. Automatically it’s a tougher opponent straight away, but it’s a good test of ourselves as well.” 

It also gives Ballinascarthy a chance to be a little more flexible – knowing that their league opponents won’t be the same clubs they face in championship. It’s an opportunity for tactical tweaks and positional changes.

“It’s more so that when you don’t know an opposition, you’re not fearful that you’re going to meet them in the championship or something like that,” he explains. “Like a club down in west Cork that we knew we were playing in our group stage, you might tend to hold a few of your aces, or play a different way.

“But you can go out and express yourself with a bit of freedom when you play clubs here that you might find are a different grade in championship.”