Billy Hennessy on recovering from serious injury to help St Finbarr's to glory and 2026 aims

St Finbarr’s McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC success last year was a sweet one for all involved with the Togher outfit especially for Billy Hennessy.

The defender, long regarded as one of the unsung heroes on the Barrs team, missed the 2024 championship due to a knee injury.

It didn’t hinder the 28-year-old, who will turn 29 this August. His performances didn’t go unnoticed as he made the Reardens All-Star team on the back of his displays that helped St Finbarr’s get their hands on the Andy Scannell trophy for the first time since 2021.

“I got injured in May 2024 in a league game here in Togher, so it was a disaster in the sense of timing,” Hennessy says.

“I missed the rest of the season and it was challenging, but there’s nothing you can do about it, just work hard to try and get back.

“I just think you have to focus on what you need to do yourself. Honestly, I think you’re not really thinking about the team too much because you can’t influence it on the pitch. You’re just focused on yourself and getting yourself right. It was a long rehab, there’s no doubt about that.

“I’m not the only fella that’s gone through that. There’s three or four fellas in every dressing room. I got back a good number of weeks before the championship last year.

“I actually came on in the league final against Clonakilty, which was my first game back.” 

St Finbarr’s couldn’t have picked a better way to win the county. They got the better of near neighbours Nemo Rangers in the decider by a point courtesy of sub Cillian Myers-Murray’s late white flag.

“It was obviously massive to win the county, especially beating Nemo in a final for the first time,” the defender said.

“Look, regardless of the opposition, any year that you win the county, it has to be considered a very successful year. If you look at the teams we beat, I think we met all of the contenders. That said, we still beat them.

“That probably added another layer of a sense of success to it that we had beaten the best of them.

“The introduction of the new rules also helped us, they probably suited our running game.

“It’s no secret that we tend to run the ball and the introduction of the new rules probably refreshed us to a certain extent. As well as the introduction of a lot of younger players. There were a lot of new faces around the panel.” 

On the new rules, Hennessy is a no-nonsense defender. How has he found them on a personal level?

“It took a bit of getting used to throughout the league last year and the early stages of the championship.

“It does definitely take time to rehearse the new way of playing in training and in challenge games and so on to get used to that collective mindset.

“It was a slow burner for us too in the championship last year. The Clonakilty and Carbery Rangers games, we were still, to a certain extent, and it’s not to disrespect those teams, but we were figuring ourselves out.

“We won those games just about and then probably put together the best performance of the year against Carrigaline in the third group game. It just took off from there.” 

We won’t delve into great detail into how St Finbarr’s season came to an end and Hennessy is reluctant to speak too much about what happened either.

The season did finish in controversial fashion for the Barrs in their Munster final loss to Dingle last month.

Conor Geaney’s two-point free right at the death gave his side the win.

“There’s no doubt it was extremely disappointing at the time to lose the Munster final. It still is.

“Looking back, you can’t say otherwise, it was a very successful year to win the league and the county, beating teams that we beat and to progress in Munster.

“We are really looking forward to the new season getting underway and the league starting in March. I think we’re going back training in the coming weeks.

“Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. We want to do well again and to try target every game."