John Horgan on what Bride Rovers will bring to Premier Senior and Castlelyons' near miss

Sometimes the difference between the joy of winning and the agony of losing can be wafer-thin, all the more so when the stakes are sky high.

In any encounter featuring close neighbours, a first round meeting or a county final there is always that bit more tension, more of a cutting edge in the battle to secure the all-important bragging rights.

When a game is played out on the first day of Winter, the final game of the year for both, the winning team will hold those bragging rights for a lengthy period of time.

Those long Winter nights will be considerably shortened, the festive period can be enjoyed to a much greater extent, in fact, Christmas has arrived early.

And it surely has for Bride Rovers, sitting proudly again at the top table of Cork senior club hurling, they are a premier club again.

It's been a long couple of weeks in the hurling homes of Rathcormac and Bartlemy, it has been too for their over-the-road neighbours from Castlelyons.

Firstly, there was a postponement because of inclement weather, then there was the drawn encounter in the Senior A decider before a resolution was finally found at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh last Saturday.

Outside of being crowned premier senior champions, the biggest prize in Cork club hurling is securing the spoils in the second tier of the championship and the elevation to the top grade that follows.

A week after their drawn encounter, Castlelyons and Bride Rovers went at it again.

No goals were registered in that 60-plus minutes of hurling seven days earlier, it was 0-14 apiece at the end of a contest that didn't reach great heights but, at the same time, it held the interest throughout because of the difficulty in trying to drag them apart.

The draw was probably the right outcome, Castlelyons the more relieved team to get a second opportunity because of the fact they never led throughout the entire game before one of their great servants, Alan Fenton pointed a lengthy free to bring us all back to headquarters again.

Again it was an encounter that took time to explode, both sides again tentative in the opening half and being wide of the target far too often, the wide count far too many. But, to be fair, things got better thereafter, much better and, as they say, better late than never and we got an ending that contained some exhilarating fare.

And it went right to the wire for a second week running, just what you want county finals to be.

Nobody was going to give up on this easily but as the game edged closer to its conclusion, the portents did not look overly encouraging for Bride Rovers, trailing by six points with seven minutes of regulation remaining.

DEEP

But anyone that has a knowledge of Bride Rovers hurling down the years would have realised that this game was far from being settled.

They dig deeper, they always have been doing so since their junior days in East Cork and somehow you knew they were not finished despite the unhealthy look on the scoreboard.

And, by God, how right we were, the next 10 minutes of the game provided some of the most exciting hurling we have witnessed in any grade this year with the men from Rathcormac turning the game on its head, delivering an unanswered 1-4 without reply.

It was frenetic stuff, despite the bitter cold, we kind of hoped that we'd get another 20 minutes of extra time.

It was not to be, valiantly, Castlelyons went under and the Rovers were back among the elite clubs of Cork hurling again.

A free could well have been awarded to Castlelyons, it wasn't and on Halloween weekend in the village of Rathcormac the fireworks lit up the grey sky above.

Over the two games, it took 96 minutes of hurling before a green flag was raised but in the remaining 24 we got four of them, two apiece. David Morrison banged in a beauty for Castlelyons, he certainly knows how to do so, and Leon Doocey followed up with a second.

Adam Walsh, had a far better day on the frees for Bride Rovers than he had in the drawn match, and he split the posts with some big points on a day when conversion wasn't easy.

However, it was his superbly executed goal that made such a huge difference in the end, the second from team-mate Paddy O'Flynn of equal importance.

Walsh ended up with 1-7, surely a leading contender for the Man of the Match but that accolade went to Cillian Tobin who excelled again in the number six jersey and he delivered a huge point into the bargain on a day when every score was of huge significance.

When just the bare minimum separates two teams after 120-plus minutes it shows how little there is between them.

And over those minutes, there was little or nothing between these two but, as they always say, a point win is as good as three or four goals, in this instance, it was probably all the sweeter against the club that is almost in your own backyard.

The introduction of this Senior A championship a number of years ago, splitting the grade into two has been a resounding success, teams maybe not up there with the bigger guns getting the opportunity to reset at the lower level before embarking on the graduation trail again.

Bride Rovers have done exactly that again and the blend of youth and experience sets them up nicely for what lies ahead next season.

For Castlelyons, it's a case of so near and yet so far but they too will reset and surely will continue to be difficult opponents for whoever crosses their path next time.

STRENGTH

Bride Rovers are now the replacement club for the relegated Erin's Own, one East Cork team for another. You don't need this column telling you about the strength of the game in the barony, the facts speak for themselves and that's the way it is.

Where last Saturday's replay was concerned, it was another case of the winner taking it all, the loser going home empty-handed.

And, as we continue to stress, there is something in the DNA of Bride Rovers teams that always shines through when the hardest of all questions are put to them. Entering the latter stages last Saturday, they somehow again had the answers.

Back in September, they lost a group stage game to another very close neighbour, Watergrasshill. It was, according to their management, a loss that galvanised them all the more for what came down the tracks.

That's what a defeat can do for you when it's not a knockout game, it can build your resolve and in their semi-final win over Carrigtwohill they needed that resolve too.

Who knows how they will fare out in the top flight next season but one thing we do know, they'll never go down without a fight.