Cork hurling: Douglas have youth on their side, now they need to deliver

When each championship season comes around, there are always question marks around this Douglas team, and whether they’ll be able to compete with the top five.

The quality of hurlers are there, no doubt. Which is why it is so perplexing, when Douglas – not only fail to make it out of the group – but suffer a humiliating hammering at the hands of a Sarsfields or St Finbarr’s come championship.

Whether this will be the year their fortunes change, we’ll have to wait and see. But there’s definitely reason for optimism. Mark O’Brien’s performances alone are worth that feeling for the southsiders.

The Cork U20 scored a very impressive 2-35 in just five appearances, of which 2-20 came from play. He average 5.2 PPG from play, while Shane Kingston wasn’t far behind with 5.1 PPG from play across his three appearances.

Adding another top-quality forward to join Kingston come championship will be huge for Douglas, while Liam Kelleher in defence is another who has settled in seamlessly at the top level. 

He’s one of 41 players Douglas used this year, which is more than any other team in the Division 1 Hurling League.

Charlie Lucas and Cillian O’Donovan were both excellent throughout this year’s league campaign, and while results tailed off towards the latter stages when player availability tightened up, they still had a positive campaign overall.

They finished seventh, but were closer to reaching a final than ninth place. If they were to have any concern, it will be the number of points they conceded. Only the Barrs and Killeagh conceded more white flags, and Douglas had the worst scoring difference of the eight teams to avoid relegation.

There won’t be much expectation on the team going into this year’s championship, but that may certainly suit them, especially with Newtownshandrum up first, who narrowly avoided relegation last year.

With Charleville and Sarsfields also in the group, reaching the knockouts won’t be an easy task by any means, but if Douglas can get it right this year, they’re as likely as either of their north Cork opponents to make it through.

Douglas’s league scorers:

Mark O’Brien 2-35 (0-14 f, 0-1 65), 

Shane Kingston 1-22 (0-9 f), 

Joseph Harte 0-16, 

Charlie Lucas 3-6, 

Cillian O’Donovan 0-14 (0-1 f), 

Andrew O’Connell 1-10, 

Alan Cadogan 0-11 (0-5 f, 0-1 65), 

Donnacha Coleman 0-10 (0-7 f, 0-2 65s), 

Chris O’Keeffe 2-3, 

Conor Kingston 0-7, 

Brian Turnbull 0-5, 

Cian Baldwin, Conor O’Donovan 0-4 each, 

Daniel Harte, Mark Howell, Sean O’Leary 0-3 each, 

Donnacha Murphy 0-2, 

Donal Maher, Eoin O’Flynn, Liam O’Callaghan, Niall Hartnett 0-1 each.

Players used and minutes accrued:

Joseph Harte (554), Mark Howell (502), Donal Maher (500), Andrew O’Connell (499), Cillian O’Donovan (482), Daniel Harte (480), Brian O’Neill (429), Conor Kingston (409), Donnacha Murphy (379), Alan Cadogan (366), Eoin O’Flynn (332), Liam Kelleher, Mark O’Brien (298 each), Charlie Lucas (282), Donnacha Coleman (275), Seán O’Leary (257), Cian Baldwin (230), Chris O’Keeffe (195), Shane Kingston (187), David Kelly, Kevin McSweeney (180 each), Brian Turnbull (162), Conor O’Donovan (142), Jack O’Brien (112), Dylan Murphy (95), Colm Mac Pháidín (86), Stephen St Ledger (73), Brian O’Connor (64), Shane O’Donoghue (61), Cormac Reddington (58), Sean Henry Squires (50), Luis Dwan-Fogarty (45), Niall Hartnett (36), Liam O’Callaghan, Sam O’Keeffe (31 each), Conor Russell (30), Donnacha Reddington (19), Ian Lucey (16), Joe Cremin (11), Aaron Baldwin (6), Killian Doyle (2).