Premier SHC: Midleton star David Cremin driven on by tough personal year 

Midleton are back at the Co-Op SuperStores Premier SHC semi-final stage for a third successive season.

They meet Blackrock tomorrow at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh with throw-in at 2pm. After beating St Finbarr’s in the last four in 2023, the Magpies lost by a point to Sarsfields last year.

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then in what has been a challenging period for all concerned with the Magpies.

Back in March, Midleton clubmen Darragh McCarthy and Ger Fitzgerald passed away. Darragh fell from the upper storey of a student accommodation in Bishopstown while Fitzgerald lost a brave fight to cancer.

Darragh was a close friend to many of the current Midleton players and the club decided to retire the number 10 jersey for this season.

Forward David Cremin was good friends with Darragh and made the choice to head to Vancouver during the summer to recharge the batteries. He has come back refreshed. 

“Off the field we’ve had a tough year,” Cremin says.

“We want to do it for Darragh and Ger. I know they’ll be looking down on us as well. The jersey I am wearing today is the one Darragh wore in the U21 East Cork final last year.

“It’s special enough to have it on. It’s obviously retired for the season, which is a nice touch for such a legend of a man. We have no shortage of motivation. Darragh was one of my best buddies and you'd miss him every day."

Midleton come into tomorrow’s game still on a high after digging deep to come from behind to beat Glen Rovers at the quarter-final stage two weeks ago. They showed everything you would want from a team in the heat of a championship battle.

“We’ve kind of been building every game, really,” the forward said.

“We started off against Newtownshandrum, won that, and then we kind of had a bit of a setback against Newcestown, it ended in a draw, but we had to beat Charleville then. We did, and then against Glen Rovers, obviously under tough enough conditions, they put it up to us, but we got through it in the end.

“At this level you have to have a massive panel, and I think the last day the boys who came off the bench stood up massively, and that’s what just drove us on. I think we were seven points down with 20 minutes to go or something like that, and that’s not a place you want to be, but we got through in the end, thank God.

“We probably have our strongest panel in a long time now. This will be our third year on the trot up in the Páirc. We haven’t really performed up there in recent years, so we’ll be hoping to rectify that the next day.” 

Blackrock went straight to the semi-finals following the conclusion of the group stage. Managing that four-week break is vital while Midleton had a bruising but successful encounter with Glen Rovers a fortnight ago.

“Blackrock obviously played challenge games and they have been training hard. It’s a bit of a mental thing, you can’t stop what you were doing. You just have to do the same thing.

“You can’t be changing anything. I think it’s important to perform at this stage. We went direct in 2023 and won the semi-final. A lot of people read too much into the four-week break. You just have to focus on what you can control.” 

It’s all about peaking at the right time, something Cremin is doing at the moment on a personal level.

“I was away during the summer and it was easy to come back in. The management didn’t mind that I went away at all. I was maybe a bit off the pace when I first came back but I got back into it easily enough.

“I was playing hurling over there as well. It was a good experience. It's a good standard over there. It was nice to get a bit of a break. I’m loving my hurling at the moment.

“Hopefully we can end a challenging year with silverware.”