Imokilly coping with challenges as Seandún lie in wait

While Imokilly have been the market leader among divisional hurling teams for the past decade, they are far from immune to the challenges faced in trying to participate in the county championship.

On Sunday evening (7pm), the east Cork side face Seandún in Páirc Uí, seeking to secure a place in the Co-op SuperStores Premier SHC quarter-finals for the sixth year in a row.

Since a big win over UCC at the beginning of the month, club commitments have meant that Imokilly have managed just one training session – last Monday – with another planned for tonight.

For manager Ronan Dwane, the importance of not overloading players who are already busy with heavy club schedules is paramount.

“It's probably a bit more challenging now, especially in terms of dual clubs,” he says.

“If a dual player is playing six weeks for their clubs and then the two break weeks, then you're out every week.

“I suppose the biggest thing and the biggest fear you have from being is that nobody goes back to their clubs injured.

“It’s the same thing on Sunday, especially with round three the following weekend, it would be very disappointing for anybody to miss out so it’s just fingers crossed that he'll be going back to the club in injury-free to give it a right rattle for the third round.”

Where Imokilly have the competitive advantage on the rest of the divisional contenders is the level of understanding built up across numerous long campaigns, including the title wins of 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2024.

While the team that played against UCC in Midleton did feature nine different starters compared to that which began last year’s quarter-final against St Finbarr’s at the same venue last autumn, the new players had still laid down experience as squad members.

“Yeah, it does provide a good foundation,” Dwane says, “fellas are very familiar with each other.

“Even if it's from school or whatever, underage squads or whatever, or schools, they're fairly familiar with each other.

“That's a big help and there's a good buy-in from the clubs and from the players as well.

“They're very ambitious to play to the highest level that they can.”

If Imokilly are to maintain their grip on the Denis O’Riordan Cup – the trophy was first awarded to the divisions/colleges hurling winner in 2022 and no other team has claimed it – then they will need to overcome Seandún.

Dwane’s team will be strong favourites but their opponents’ character has been shown in how they got the better of Carbery and Muskerry, both after extra time.

“They’ve played two matches and they’ve won both of them, obviously,” he says.

“Having that is a big help for them and they did very, very well against Muskerry, a very strong Moscow team.

“Even the fact that that game went to extra time should stand to them because they got to use extra players across normal time and extra time, so you're getting everyone involved and giving more fellas game-time. That’s good for any division.

“They’ve won two games to get here and we have to be sure that we’re under no illusions.

“It's going to be a tough battle and we'll have to be at our best to get anything out of it.”