Historic milestone awaits Donoughmore in U21 C hurling final

There is a sliver of history being written by Donoughmore’s U21 hurlers this weekend, regardless of the outcome. For a club that has been a familiar presence at underage level in recent seasons, that progress is now starting to become tangible.

On Sunday, January 4 at 1pm, Donoughmore meet Cobh in the U21 C Hurling Championship final at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh 4G, a first-ever county final appearance for the club at U21 or adult hurling level.

Their football achievements have rightly drawn attention this year. A Muskerry Junior A championship title was secured for the first time since 2011, and followed by a narrow defeat to Kilmacabea in the county final.

At minor level, Donoughmore’s Premier 2 footballers added further silverware, overcoming St Finbarr’s to claim back-to-back county titles. They also lost out in the county B U21 football decider against St Nick’s before Christmas.

But, the progress is on both fronts. They’ve been driving an increase in standards in hurling too, and behind that growth is the depth – and youth – that is now filtering through the club, something hurling manager Barry Holland is keen to emphasise.

“Our team is exceptionally young,” he begins. “There are about nine or ten of our U21 players that played in the Junior A hurling championship this year. A lot of work has been done at underage level within the club by many people in hurling and football, and that's why we probably have the great crop of players that are there at the moment.

“There is a lot of hard work being done in improving the level of hurling in the club at adult level, and hopefully we can continue this growth in the years ahead.

“Even this year, it's not as if we have a big pool of players to choose from.

“For those players to be really driving on to playing at U21 and Junior A level in both codes, even the fellas at minor level, a lot of them are still minor.

ACHIEVEMENT

“We were knocked out in the Premier 2 hurling at the quarter-final stage against the Barrs, who went on to win it.

“It’s a fantastic achievement for these bunch of players to be playing Premier 2 in hurling and football,” Holland explains. “It has been a hectic year in a way because it's hurling and football week in week out.

“We won the junior hurling league this year back in July and again that was a very young team and we haven't won it for over 20 or 25 years. We got to the semi-final of the Junior A hurling league, and lost to Carraig na bhFear, who won it outright.

“There are a few older guys obviously that are in the team, but the bulk of our players are really around the U21 bracket.” That quality was evident in their semi-final performance, a commanding 5-17 to 2-9 win over St Mark’s, though Holland believes there remains scope for refinement before this weekend’s decider.

“We were probably on top in the first 20, 25 minutes against St Mark’s,” he explains. “The scoreline at half-time, probably didn't justify the position that we felt we should have been in.

“We should have scored a little bit more, we were probably a little bit wasteful maybe in the first 15, 20 minutes.

“That's quite understandable too, because a lot of our players have been involved in football over the last number of weeks.” It has been a long and demanding campaign, but one that’s yielded a number of finals.

“We have got to a lot of finals this year. When you start off at the start of the year you win your U21 football mid Cork, you progress after that then you’ve got the two mid Cork Junior A football and hurling leagues for the first time as a double.

“Obviously, we lost the semi-final of the hurling to Grenagh in the championship, the footballers won the mid Cork, and they went on and they lost the county final.

“It has been a fantastic year all around and it's great to be getting into county finals,” says Holland. “And equally, it's great to be at the end of December after Christmas and you're turning around and you're going into playing a county semi-final, and after progressing now and going into a county final.”