Premier JHC: Young turks helping to drive Cloughduv forward again

Making the step up to adult hurling can be a daunting one, especially coming into a team that has just been relegated.

However, Cloughduv have benefited from an injection of youth as they seek to effect an immediate return to intermediate A level following 2024’s demotion.

Seán O’Leary is one of four teenagers who have come into the mid-Cork club’s squad this year. With a Co-op SuperStores Premier JHC semi-final against Glen Rovers to come on Friday night in Páirc Uí Rinn (7.30pm), he is enjoying the journey.

“Yeah, the management have been very good to us,” he says.

“There was three 19-year-olds starting against Argideen – there’s myself, Max O'Leary and Aidan O'Leary, the two of them are brilliant and then we've got a couple of others like Tim O'Connor coming off the bench.

“When there’s a group of us playing it makes it a lot easier, when you’ve played with lads coming up the grades.

“Tim Barry-Murphy and Pat Dunlea, the manager and coach, have been very good to us, like, you know, and my dad [Donie] is a selector, so he'd know all of us, and Derry Keane, who we've had a coach all up to the ages.

“Then, the older lads, like Mark Verling, Brian Verling, Mark Walsh, Will Aherne and all these lads have been very good to us just to get us into the team.

“They all want you to come along, there’s no, ‘You’re taking my place on the team,’ or anything.

“It's all about building a team together, so it's been great from that point of view. You'd think it's scary, but when we're on the pitch, there's nothing to worry about.”

Which isn’t to stay that there haven’t been areas where the step up is noticeable.

“The physicality, the pace, the tactical side of it,” O’Leary says.

“When you're going into a minor game, you might have a puckout strategy but at adult level, you could have two inside, sweepers, puckout strategy, it's completely different.

“I think the tactical side is quite a big thing.”

Having been IAHC finalists in 2022, Cloughduv experienced the other side of that grade’s competitive nature last year as they lost out to Aghada – automatic semi-finalists this year – in the relegation play-off.

There was no dwelling on misfortune, though.

“At the start of the year, Tim Barry and Pat brought everyone in and to talk about what our objectives for the year were,” O’Leary says.

“The first step was to get out of the group stage and then we've three finals after that – the quarter final, semi-final, final.

“We're past the first final anyway, so it's about trying to take the next step.

“We've two lads back from Australia as well, and it just makes a massive difference, like, a huge difference.

“Brian Verling and Mark Walsh, they were away in the last few years, so it was brilliant to see them back.”

Having opened with a win over Nemo Rangers, Cloughduv then lost to Kilbrittain, making their last group game against Barryroe an effective knockout tie. Coming through that, they were excellent in seeing off another Carbery outfit, Argideen Rangers, in the quarter-finals.

O’Leary now hopes that they can maintain their momentum.

“Obviously, you lose the game and you're disappointed,” he says, “but then you’re into a must-win game and I thought it brought us on a lot more.

“I think training's gone through the roof since. Since we lost to Kilbrittain, I never saw training all year like it.

“There was nobody feeling sorry for themselves, it was all just go, go, go.

“In the quarter-final, then, everything just clicked.”