Long road, familiar rivals – Ian Maguire and the Barrs back where they belong

They’ve been on the road a long time, Ian Maguire says.

Long enough to know what it feels like to fall short, wondering where the margins slipped. Long enough to know how quickly fortunes can swing in October.

For St Finbarr’s, this season has been one of evolution rather than revolution.

No reset button pressed, no sweeping changes in the dressing room – just the slow, stubborn work of a group intent on climbing again, and again, in a championship where experience counts far more than talk.

And as they gear up to face city rivals Nemo Rangers in the Premier Senior decider on Sunday, Maguire’s words carry the wear of the miles.

“There's always been an ambition to get to a county final, but take it game by game,” Maguire begins. “And I suppose we have been knocking on the door the last two years. But because the group's been on the road now for five, six years, we always have kind of an ambition to get to the semi-final and final, and just take it on its own."

He points out “the final-day drama” of being paired with title holders Castlehaven in the quarter-final – when the semi-final bye could have been on – but there’s no hint of complaint.

“Where we had previously probably met Castlehaven in the semi-final, it gave a different perplexion, because there was a chance of going straight to a semi, then automatically you got a tough draw in the quarter-final.” 

Maguire’s been around long enough to have seen good Barrs teams bow out too soon and better ones learn why. The past two seasons, he admits, fell into the former category.

MIXED

“We've had a kind of a mixed last two years, especially when you lose, you're always going to look at it under a microscope,” he says. “Two years ago, we would have felt like we were lifting and got a bye into the semi.

“But Castlehaven, a very good team beat us. And then last year we had our first loss in the group stages, which was a kick up the hole in a lot of ways.

“But we had a couple of injuries last year and struggled,” he explains. “Again, we were well beaten in the semi. So we kind of went into this year knowing that, you don't want to say go back to the drawing board – that's too strong of a term – but we had to look a bit inwards as players and try and look to build in the group stages, which we did.” 

The results show the learning.

“In fairness, we had a much improved league this year. Winning the league final just before championship, I know it happened to be against Clon who were in the group stages as well, but that was a nice confidence booster.

“And in fairness, everybody came back from inter-county duty, especially the hurlers. We had no injuries, so it was a nice added bonus.” 

Everyone came back just in time – and he’ll have another familiar face back in the blood and bandage next season. A face Maguire’s probably sick of seeing, given he and Steven Sherlock shared a roof during COVID.

“Like, both our parents' houses are down the road, we've always been good buddies. Which I suppose translates to the pitch as well. We've been playing together for so long, and I suppose it stands with the group.

“There're so many of us playing together, myself, Enda Dennehy, Sam Ryan, we're all from the same age coming up,” he remarks. “This is probably an experienced group, we've been playing together for a long time.

“It’s probably been a bit different with the split season, because there's fellas missing at different times, but we referenced it after the game. This is going to be our first time since July, having the whole team together for two weeks.

So it's going to be a very exciting run into the final.

Playing together, living together – and, in Maguire’s case, even working alongside some of them. There’s no real escape from the Barrs. An Associate Director with Grant Thornton, the blue-and-gold thread has found its way into the office too.

“You get the choice for different modules in Leaving Cert, I picked business, economics, and accounting. I was brutal at science and languages.

“I did finance in college, so I just went down that route, ended up in Grant Thornton. I did a graduate programme there, and just stayed there, and then there's a few fellas – Eoin Comyns works there now, and Ethan Twomey's actually starting his graduate programme there. Meabh Cahalane is there as well.

“Barrs culture!” he laughs. “Even though my boss is a Sars man. So he had that over us there last week.”