U21AHC final: Being the team to beat has brought out the best in holders Midleton

Midleton head the Cork U21AHC roll of honour with seven titles.

Sometimes, such a tally might be built around a gifted group or two with championships won in big clusters but there is just one instance of back-to-back victories among the Magpies’ septet, secured in 1988 and 1989.

On Sunday, they will hope to achieve another repeat pairing as they go into the decider against Shandrum as the holders of the Dick Barrett Cup.

However, the team that takes to the SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh 4G pitch at 2pm will be quite different from the 2024 vintage. Manager Liam O’Keeffe has been impressed with how the newcomers have stepped up.

“We lost a very good half-back line that we had to replace,” he says, “but we were lucky that we could bring in a good few of the minors.

“We’ve added Matt McSweeney, Cian Lawton, Senan Carroll, Max Murphy – they’re minor again next year.

“We’ve gelled well. After the seniors were beaten, we gave them a week off and then we refreshed it and brought them back.

“I brought in a new management team, with Paudie [O’Shea], Aidan [Ryan], Cillian [Hurley], Coleman Quinn, Ger Lawton and myself. We just changed it about a bit and we kept it fresh.

“We kept the one-night-a-week going and matches fell into place for us.”

Last year, Midleton’s win over St Finbarr’s only put one hand on the trophy as they then had to take on Bride Rovers in the East Cork final. Though the journey has been more conventional this time around, being the champions has made them the scalp everyone else wanted to take.

“A hundred percent,” O’Keeffe says.

“We had a tough East Cork championship – Carrig threw the kitchen sink at us and obviously we knew what we were going to get from Bride Rovers.

“We were wary of both Ballincollig and Newcestown but we did play well against them. Sunday is going to be more of the same.”

Having players who featured in the Co-op SuperStores Premier SHC final loss to Sarsfields provides great experience as well as motivation. Equally, they are aware of what lies ahead.

“They showed a great attitude when they came back,” O’Keeffe says, “it was player-driven, really, to be fair to them, lads like Davy [Cremin], Evan [McGrath] and Mikey [Finn].

“If we show the same attitude that we’ve shown all year, it’ll take a good team to beat us but it’ll be a huge challenge – we know what Newtown are like. They’ve great tradition behind them and they’ll come with a plan.

I watched them against Valley Rovers and they had four in the full-forward line against the wind and it took a while for them to figure that out.

“Valleys were no bad team, either – you have to put it into perspective, they beat a very good Glen Rovers team that were backed by two Premier 1 minor titles. Everyone was expecting a Glen-Midleton final but that didn’t happen and you have to give Valleys and Shandrum credit for that.”