Rochestown relish underdog tag for Tralee CBS showdown

One last Cork school remaining in the Corn Uí Mhuirí. St Francis College Rochestown must bring down title hopefuls Tralee CBS at Cill na Martra on Saturday in their semi-final, if they’re to have a shot at winning a first title since 1950.

Roco will need to bring their best performance yet, and they won’t have it easy. Gearóid White top scored against the Sem, and Kerry U20 Ronan Carroll remains a serious scoring outlet.

Rochestown manager Liam Sheehan makes no attempt to disguise the challenge, but neither does he accept the closing of possibilities.

“We'll definitely be underdogs going into it, there's no doubt about it,” Sheehan begins. “Tralee CBS have been touted since the start of the year, they have been the favourites for the whole competition.

“They've won the Kerry Championship as well. They've a very strong squad.

“We know it's going to be a massive, massive test,” he explains. “But, at the same time, it's one we're looking forward to and we’re hoping just to give a good account of ourselves.” 

The outside narrative has put Tralee firmly in the role of front-runners, and with good reason. Their campaign to date has been measured and convincing. Yet Sheehan, a Kerry native himself, believes the gap is narrower than the consensus suggests.

“I would think so. I'm not even reading or seeing much else about who's favourites or anything like that, but I just know myself, since the start of the year, the talk is all about Tralee,” he adds. “We're used to that anyway when we come up against the Kerry teams. In a lot of cases, we'll be underdogs going into it.

“We need to get an awful lot of things right on the day. But, we're confident too.

“We have a lot of talent in our ranks, we've a lot of guys who have worn the Cork jersey in both hurling and football,” says Sheehan. “They've inter-county experience, so we'll be banking on those guys to rise to the challenge and really take the game to them.” 

TARGET

The road to this stage has not been perfect, though.

Their primary target at the outset of the year was the Simcox Cup – a title that has eluded them for close to a decade – and that ambition ended abruptly with a single-point defeat away to Clonakilty.

“We were disappointed in the first round of the Cork championship, that was our main aim this year. We got the toughest draw imaginable,” he says. “We got drawn away from home to Clonakilty, and we were beaten by a point.

“Brutal conditions down there. Now, it could have gone either way, but they deserved it on the day and they went on to win it.

“Since then, we've had to dust ourselves down and just kind of just focus on Munster now and see how we go. But I've been delighted with the lads' application and effort.

“Everything we've asked of them, they've done. As I said, we've a few lads in the county squads hurling in football U20 and a few of the minors,” he says. “So, we've been liaising with those squads as well and just trying to keep fellas fresh and fit.

“Even this week now as well, we've been managing to do with workloads and stuff. Guys are still in county squads this week, so we're just hoping they come through that injury-free this week and that they're fresh for Saturday.” 

Rochestown have hovered around this level for much of the past decade – semi-finals a regular stop, finals reached, but the last step still unclaimed.

“We've been knocking on the door a while. In the last decade or 12 years, we’re regularly making semi-finals, and we’ve gotten to a couple of finals as well.

“We'd love to go a step further, no doubt about that. It's an ambition of ours. We're just focussing on the next one now and just trying to give a good account for ourselves.

“And if that's good enough on the day, that would be great. And if not, we can say that we gave it everything.”