Carrigtwohill hurlers dug deepest to reach final as Denis Walsh hails 'best performance of the year'

Carrigtwohill manager Denis Walsh said his side produced “our best performance of the year” as they booked their place in the Co‑Op SuperStores SAHC final with a superb victory over Blarney at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday evening. 

They will now face Erin’s Own in next month’s decider after the 0-25 to 0-21 win, and Walsh made no attempt to play down the significance of what his group delivered on the biggest day of their season so far.

Blarney have been one of the championship’s most impressive sides this year, and even without the influential Pádraig Power, they carried serious threat throughout. But Carrigtwohill met that challenge head‑on.

“We knew that if we didn’t bring our best performance today, we were going to be in trouble,” Walsh said. 

“It was our best performance of the year so far, no question about that, and we’re thrilled that we produced it on a day like this when we had to.

“The calmness on the ball, the work rate, the aggression — but mostly the calmness. The way we minded the ball, and some of the points were unreal. Patrick Walsh, Cian O'Riordan, Daniel Murnane, James Mulcahy — they got some incredible scores.” 

Walsh also spoke at length about the absence of Seán Walsh, his nephew, whose injury earlier this year ruled him out of the championship but not out of Carrigtwohill’s season. 

“Seán has made an unbelievable contribution,” he says. 

Since he got injured, he’s made a huge contribution as a coach, but he made a huge contribution to our year in general. 

"We took fierce confidence from the league this year and our performances against the top teams — and Seán led that. His performances in the league, it’s hard to quantify how much confidence we got from it. He drove it.”

ATTACK-MINDED

Walsh was emphatic in his praise for coach John Dwyer from Ballincollig.

“John has made a phenomenal impact on this group,” he states. 

“The lads are absolutely mad about him. His training is superb — absolutely superb. He’s had a transformative effect in terms of the quality of our hurling and the kind of hurling we want to play. 

He’s a really attack‑minded coach, and that suits the fellas we have. We’re absolutely thrilled to have him.”

Saturday’s win was built on collective effort. Carrigtwohill defended from everywhere, tracked back relentlessly, and showed the togetherness required to beat a side of Blarney’s calibre. Walsh said that spirit has been forged through a season that has tested them repeatedly.

They lost their opening group game to Inniscarra and were under pressure from the outset. They were seconds from elimination against Ballinhassig and survived only through a stoppage‑time turnaround. 

Against Na Piarsaigh, Walsh said he “couldn’t tell how many times we were out of the championship”, yet they kept finding answers in the quarter-final.

“There's huge resilience,” he said. 

“Today was definitely our best performance of the championship, which it needed to be against a team of Blarney’s quality.” 

Carrigtwohill now have a month to prepare for the final, with the fixture pencilled in for the first weekend of November.