Christy O'Connor: From JBM to Steven Sherlock, St Finbarr's ready to make their mark against Kerry 

On the afternoon that St Finbarr’s defeated Nemo Rangers in the Cork county final in October, Ian Maguire and Steven Sherlock approached Jimmy Barry Murphy and outlined their desire to go after a Munster club title.

It was exactly what Barry Murphy wanted to hear, especially when he had made his name chasing provincial and All-Ireland glory with the Barrs and Cork as a player in both codes.

“That’s their attitude,” said JBM a few weeks later after the Barrs had beaten Clonmel Commercials in Clonmel in the Munster quarter-final. “And that’s what we wanted to see.” 

 The players had just proven how much they wanted to win Munster with their performance against Clonmel. Trailing by one point with time almost up, the Barrs scored the last four scores to get the job done.

A display of defiance against a good side in their backyard was even more satisfying again for Barry Murphy because that was what he had always been accustomed to as a player with the Barrs. Especially in Munster.

“We have a very good young panel of players coming through,” said JBM afterwards. “And we want to build on that and make sure that we maintain that tradition.” 

LEGACY

That tradition has always been an emblem of the Barrs' history but the current generation of Barrs players have had to work a lot harder to construct their own modern heritage. Unlike the past when the Barrs would regularly win county championships, it hasn’t been as easy to enter an arena that the Barrs routinely occupied for so long. 

“Munster is where you want to be,” said Steven Sherlock after the Clonmel game.

It is but the Barrs set such a standard in the province, with nine Munster titles in both codes, that trying to meet or match that level of excellence is always a merciless task.

On the other hand, this generation of Barrs players know that embracing that challenge is the only way that they can try and write their own history, and script the next chapter in the Barrs’ glorious story.

“It's very good to have tradition in the club and it's great to see legends out there all the time,” said Sherlock recently. “But we want to be in that calibre too. 

We want to prove to ourselves that we're good enough to do this as well.” 

Sherlock and a cohort of his team-mates proved that they were four years ago when winning a Munster club title, but this group has an opportunity now to build on their, and the club’s, legacy by winning a second title when they face Dingle in Sunday’s final.

Another crown now would add another layer to the club’s lore and see the Barrs join an illustrious group. Only eight clubs around the country have won seven or more provincial football titles: Nemo Rangers Corofin (Galway), Clann na nGael and St Brigid’s (Roscommon), Crossmaglen Rangers (Armagh), St Vincent’s and Kilmacud Crokes (Dublin), and Portlaoise (Laois).

A sixth title though, added to the club’s four provincial senior hurling titles, would see the Barrs become just the seventh club to have won 10 or more provincial titles, alongside Nemo, Crossmaglen Rangers, Corofin, Ballyhale Shamrocks, Cushendall, and Dunloy.

Yet all of those clubs built those empires after the Barrs had been the original empire-builders when winning seven provincial titles between 1974-1986.

Barry Murphy was involved in six of those successes. His last appearance as a player on that stage in the provincial football arena came three days short of Christmas in 1985 when St Finbarr’s were whacked by Castleisland Desmonds by nine points in Bruff.

The previous year, the Barrs also lost the Munster final to Castleisland in Bruff by three points, this time on the day before Christmas Eve.

It’s rarely spoken about but one of the greatest achievements in the history of the club championship is the All-Ireland title the Barrs won in 1987. As well as losing successive Munster finals in 1984 and 1985, that Barrs side also lost county finals in 1984 and 1986. Yet they still had the resilience to come back and win Munster and All-Ireland titles in 1986-’87.

Barry Murphy didn’t play with the club’s footballers in that same season that he won his last All-Ireland with Cork in 1986, which was his last appearance in a red jersey. But he has been around enough winning Barrs dressingrooms to know what those days are all about.

“It’s fantastic,” he said after the Clonmel match. 

I never thought I’d see this again, so for me it’s a great bonus. I love being involved in it. 

"It’s a great competition. A different dynamic.” 

PAYBACK

Barry Murphy played in nine Munster club finals in football and hurling but the three finals he lost were to Kerry teams – Castleisland and Austin Stacks. In his six years playing with the Barrs in the Munster club championship between 1976-’85, Barry Murphy and the Barrs only beat a Kerry team once – the 1982 final when they took down Castleisland.

Beating a Kerry team in the final now would make it even sweeter again for the Barrs, and for Barry Murphy. It would be even more honeycombed for the players because overcoming a Kerry team in the final for the second time in five years would add to this group’s modern legacy.

And it would be the most latent expression of how this generation of St Finbarr’s players are trying to maintain and build on their immense tradition in the Munster club championship.