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Post by onlykerry on Mar 13, 2017 15:42:39 GMT
Hells Bells - so 9 of the current squad have significant connections to the '92 team. That is a lot of continuity for a town club. I'm sure the ribbing from the haves to the have nots (even good humoured as it most likely is) is a motivation in itself. Sorry, I know this is completely off topic... Funny you should say "for a town club". I was having a conversation at the weekend about other people's perception or Crokes and other "town" teams. It's seems because they are not directly linked to a parish or community there is a perception that there is less of a spirit or togetherness about town clubs. I would say that it is no different to any other club as it would have families with long historys within the club and all the same events that are held in other clubs (I.e. Card nights, juvenile parties, club outings, etc.) As I say I think this is mainly to do with that town clubs are not directly connected to a Parish and also that there are so many other groups/clubs within a town. For instance in most parishes the GAA club would be the main hub simply because it may be the only community building. Anyway, random I know but just putting it out there. I would think all clubs have their core members with multiple generations of their family associated with the club - with the bigger towns there tends to be more movement of people and therefore more "new blood" and you are correct this is a perception rather than a fact. All clubs need new blood in my opinion - it keeps them fresh and helps them thrive. Rural clubs tend to get fewer "new" members as the jobs tend to be in towns and cities and families follow the jobs - current planning laws exacerbates this as to get planning to build a new house in rural Kerry you need to show a connection to the area. Thinking of my own neighbourhood about 40% are from the area and 60% are newbies to the area. In the case of Crokes - the 25 year gap is near perfect for continuity in players from the '92 team when you think og it.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Mar 13, 2017 16:25:25 GMT
I'll tell you what I think is funny.
Ballincollig GAA... called by their supporters "the Village".
Forgetting Spa, Fossa and Kilcummin, Killarney has two clubs Crokes and Legion.
Two town clubs... while the "village" Ballincollig has one.
Population of Killarney: 14219 (2011)
Population of Ballincollig: 17368 (2011)
Village My Hole!
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 13, 2017 16:57:41 GMT
I'll tell you what I think is funny. Ballincollig GAA... called by their supporters "the Village". Forgetting Spa, Fossa and Kilcummin, Killarney has two clubs Crokes and Legion. Two town clubs... while the "village" Ballincollig has one. Population of Killarney: 14219 (2011) Population of Ballincollig: 17368 (2011) Village My Hole! Ballincollig has grown even more since then. Initially it was a small village outside of the city. It is no coincidence they have "suddenly" won their first senior title. The "village" has grown a lot in the last 15 years as have many commuter towns around Cork city. Likewise Carrigaline might reach senior status soon and work their way up the rankings. Look at the successes of Rochestown college and the amount of Carrigaline players in the college. Other areas like Ballygarvan, Tracton parish or Ballinhassig have yet to experience serious growth. Around Kerry rural areas see no significant population growth, bar a few towns like Miltown attracting people from Killarney, and even the towns in Kerry are not growing at the national rate. More and more youths move to Cork or Kerry for work, starts families there or have other reasons for not moving back to the kingdom. Effects are not immediately noticeable, but will become more and more noticeable in the coming decades.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 13, 2017 17:36:38 GMT
Brian codys club, james stephens in kilkenny city, is known far and wide as "the village" too. I am sure twas a village too one time
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 13, 2017 18:52:52 GMT
Brian codys club, james stephens in kilkenny city, is known far and wide as "the village" too. I am sure twas a village too one time The area the club is from was originally an irish village just outside the walls of the city. It was a poor area. Belfast has a village too. The area around Windsor Park, the homeground of Linfield and the northern Irish national soccer team, is called the village. There is many "villages" all around Ireland, that aren't. I'm sure there is at least one in Dublin.
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Post by baurtregaum on Mar 13, 2017 19:13:21 GMT
I'll tell you what I think is funny. Ballincollig GAA... called by their supporters "the Village". Forgetting Spa, Fossa and Kilcummin, Killarney has two clubs Crokes and Legion. Two town clubs... while the "village" Ballincollig has one. Population of Killarney: 14219 (2011) Population of Ballincollig: 17368 (2011) Village My Hole! True, but a lot of residents of Ballincollig are blow-ins from the city or further west and use it firstly for the easy commute. They would have no great affiliation with the place really. Killarney would be different in that respect. The first time I went through Ballincollig it seemed no bigger than Castleisland, if even that. That was about 30 years ago. It is a large town now and with the demolition of the barracks and the shopping centre development it is a very different 'village' indeed.
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Post by kerrygold on Mar 13, 2017 19:48:23 GMT
Some people take everything so literally. Every time and every place!
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Post by glengael on Mar 13, 2017 20:33:07 GMT
Appropriate to remember that the 92 Crokes team are not the last Kerry team to win the senior club prize with that honour remaining (for a few more days only hopefully) with Laune Rangers in 1996.
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Post by kerrygold on Mar 15, 2017 8:54:19 GMT
Any Crokes team named yet? Is Eoin Brosnan back to full fitness?
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hugh20
Senior Member
Posts: 734
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Post by hugh20 on Mar 15, 2017 9:04:00 GMT
That was an excellent Laune Rangers team.
I would expect the Crokes team to remain the same as the Corofin game. As far as I am aware nothing has been announced anyway. I think Eoin could struggle to get time if the game is in the melting pot, he has only trained a handful of times in months. If Crokes have a 5 point lead or more heading into the final few minutes I can see him getting a few minutes as sentimental gesture (but that's ambitious and I expect it to be very close at the final whistle).
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Post by kerrygold on Mar 15, 2017 9:08:08 GMT
Probably as you were so for Crokes. Two club titles in 32 seasons is a poor return for Kerry Clubs. The best of luck to Dr. Crokes on Friday.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 15, 2017 15:38:26 GMT
Seoirse... Heres one for you. If James Stephens in kilkenny is called "the village", what are O'Loughlin gaels, on the other side of the river, known locally as..
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 15, 2017 17:05:25 GMT
Seoirse... Heres one for you. If James Stephens in kilkenny is called "the village", what are O'Loughlin gaels, on the other side of the river, known locally as.. Other than the Johns and the Gaels I don't know to be honest. I'm no expert on Kilkenny hurling clubs. Just knew the bit about the the village as the area is called the village as well.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 15, 2017 17:21:12 GMT
"the continent".
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 15, 2017 21:30:59 GMT
Interesting.I wonder why the continent. You have any idea why?
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Mar 16, 2017 9:14:29 GMT
Something to do with the Flight of the Earls, or similar?
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 16, 2017 11:15:24 GMT
Dr Crokes’ Harry O’Neill: Keeping it in the family By Tony Leen Management loses games, players win them (Great GAA truisms, No 53 in a series). On the bad days, the ditch carps and criticises and moans about the sideline. Lambasts may be the association term. Clueless clowns. On Lewis Road in Killarney, you might catch a carp or two on the odd occasion Dr Crokes lose a game, but it’ll be a brave ditch hurler all the same. Or a fool. There’s All-Ireland-winning experience stretched across the Dr Crokes dugout that straddles five decades. From Eddie ‘Tatler’ O’Sullivan, a selector in Dwyer’s golden years, to Niall ‘Botty’ O’Callaghan, still involved in Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s backroom team. Sandwiched between are two forwards in Dr Crokes’ one and only All-Ireland club success in 1992, Pat O’Shea and Mike Buckley (both with sons playing tomorrow in Croke Park). By the by, Pat trained Kerry to the 2007 All-Ireland crown. By comparison, Harry O’Neill’s track record is positively underwhelming, training Dr Crokes to a mere three Kerry football championships in 2000 (Gaeltacht), 2010 (Austin Stacks), and 2011 (Mid Kerry). And yet, it was his role in Pat O’Shea’s management roster this season that intrigued most. Two championship-winning managers in the same dressing room? It could only end in somebody’s eye scratched out. Actually not so much, though O’Neill (56) acknowledges that, initially, the chattering classes had a field day. “You knew from the soundings and the talk around town that some thought this was a crazy way for us to be going about our business,” he says now. “But I knew what Pat was doing, trying to get as many Crokes people together with a lot of experience for the betterment of our club. “If I was to say ‘if I’m not the manager I’m not going to be in here’, then I wasn’t going to be helping the Crokes club at all. When (chairman) Denis Coleman and Pat were trying to put all this together, I’d say it wasn’t a crazy thing at all to get involved — it was an easy thing. “Why wouldn’t I want to work with someone like Pat O’Shea, who has an unbelievable mind for detail, someone for whom Gaelic football is his life? I am going to learn from the experience of working with him and helping the club. “Alongside, there’s vast experience in Mike, ‘Tatler’ and Niall, who has been with Kerry for the last eight to 10 years. There’s been a huge amount of learning in one season. We all deal with things differently, but it’s very much a collective. We all have our input. Pat is the voice in the dressing room, but it’s been fantastic the way it’s worked.” For that, the chairman, Denis Coleman, must take some credit. The club had the gumption to accept that going beyond Lewis Road for a management team hadn’t worked. Pat O’Shea stamps a large footprint across the Crokes and by hunkering down tight amongst their own, the Killarney club was publishing its manifesto in big black and amber print. “Even the backroom team,” O’Neill adds, “Matthew Courtney, Seamie Doc (Doherty), and Brian Callaghan, John C Shea doing the video work. Pat’s plan was to bring as many experienced Crokes people as he could back into the set-up and show the players the club is serious about what it’s doing. The way we’d have operated always was we took care of our own business within the Crokes club, with our own people. That’s as important for the ladies committee, who are here twice a week preparing dinner for the players, to the senior management. The Crokes ethos is crucial.” Beyond that, O’Neill can’t, or won’t, identify reasons the club has this year progressed beyond the All-Ireland semi-final stage it reached in 2012, 13, and 14’. Not that there should be seismic shifts. The gains are marginal on such elevated plateaus. “I accept it’s a management cliché, but we literally took every game at a time (No 54 in the series?). There was no ‘we have to win a county or an East Kerry. We didn’t start the year saying we had to win anything.” In previous campaigns, the hurlers on the bank mused that maybe they got their timing wrong between the Munster and All-Ireland club campaigns, that fraught no-man’s land over Christmas when squads are never sure whether to rest or kick on. “The difference from previous years was for those three All-Ireland semis on the trot, we were going in Munster right up to the wire at Christmas, nine or 10 games on the trot. Christmas was suddenly upon you but you know that on January 3, you got to be back. This year we finished (Munster) on December 4 and were able to give the players a bit of downtime. That helped. Some of the lads went away with Kerry to New York, we had Kieran O’Leary’s wedding and a social night for the club, but all the time we made sure they maintained the level of fitness.” O’Shea’s management team has big calls to make this week. Stellar youngsters like Micheal Burns, Tony Brosnan, and Jordan Kiely have already shined in green and gold, yet can’t force their way into a starting slot for Crokes. Ditto Chris Brady. There’s no other club team in Kerry they wouldn’t start with. “New opposition, the book is open again,” shrugs Harry O’Neill. “We see what best suits us to go with and match up against Slaughtneil. There will be discussions.” And they will extend to Jimmy Briens and Tatlers, the Fáilte and the SpeakEasy. With guns loaded…
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Post by Seoirse Ui Duic on Mar 16, 2017 11:16:44 GMT
Analysis: The skill and class of Cooper and O'Leary have been key to Dr Crokes' All-Ireland club hopeswww.facebook.com/TheSundayGame/videos/993238004143680/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINEDr Crokes the ideal case study for football’s great debatesBy Tony Leen Sports Editor There are times watching Dr Crokes turn talent from the programme page to the pitch that makes one wonders how they ever lose a game. They do, though. And like a tabloid celebrity expose, they frequently get played out and dissected in the full glare of a national audience. Three All-Ireland club semi-finals in a row from 2012 they came up short against Crossmaglen, Ballymun, and Castlebar, and while the latter may be remembered for the dreadful knee injury suffered by Colm Cooper, there is a good reason they lost all three. They didn’t produce when it mattered most. Harsh? Not really, accepts forward and captain Dáithí Casey. “The club is waiting since 1992 for that second All-Ireland, and the reality is we didn’t perform in those three semis. That’s unfortunately what let us down. In the past, we were playing a lovely brand of football, but were we going the extra mile? I don’t know. This season every fella has tuned in, and it’s not about individual brilliance. It’s more numbers 1-20. “Before, individual moments would have won games for us. Now the backs are very solid, and up top, every fella has chipped in.” Casey has good reason to roll his eyes when the inevitable ‘Crokes-don’t-like-it-up-’em’ issue is prosecuted. He’s heard it for a decade, as though four Kerry county championships in succession from 2010 were won against marshmallows. But with a decade’s senior experience behind him, he discerns a harder mental edge to his colleagues this season. “Those (semi-final) losses were tough, but going into this All-Ireland final now, it has turned into a positive. Those experiences stand to you, we haven’t gone into any game getting ahead of ourselves. Maybe we had done that before. We went in with a strong favourite tag in previous years but this time Corofin were really being talked up before the semi-final.” Maybe it’s just that towny footballers are supposed to be lighter and cuter than their country brethren, but Casey’s underage years present a recurring theme of size and scale. In fact, Crokes are an ideal case study for many of football’s key debates: Style v substance, football v athleticism, nurture v nature, power v panache. “We’ve always been considered small as a team. Even watching underage games now, Crokes always appear to be the smaller, skillful fellas. Maybe our mothers aren’t feeding us! It’s been said for a long time that we can be knocked out of our stride but I don’t think any team will bully Crokes out of it. I personally never feared we’d lose a game because we would be muscled out of it. Once the Crokes are hungry, we won’t be bullied out of it. If fellas are tuned in and ready to go, there are not going to be many teams, no matter how big they think they are, who will be bullying us.” And that’s the key bit. ‘Once the Crokes are hungry…’ — they are. Club chairman Denis Coleman had the club’s sense of identity in his mind when he approached Pat O’Shea to take control of the senior team last year. The club dabbled with outside management after those three All-Ireland semi-final losses, bringing in now-Cork manager Peadar Healy. Last year O’Shea, a greater influence on the club’s DNA than anyone in terms of what goes on on the pitch, went black-and-amber down through his management ticket. Harry O’Neill, Mike Buckey, Niall O’Callaghan, and Eddie ‘Tatler’ O’Sullivan is about as Crokes as it gets. And the players got the message. “The big thing here is that the club has always looked for footballers. The emphasis of the club is to play.” says Casey. “You see how defensive it has gone, but we are still trying to keep it free-flowing. We are not stupid and we understand our defensive responsibilities but at the same time, attack is genuinely our best form of defence.” The debate is understandably framed by those boys of 1992, the All-Ireland winners who were able to deal the physique of John Galvin, Sean Clarke, Mike Buckley, and Noel O’Leary at robust challengers but Daithi Casey throws any of the Crokes defence or midfield down on that card. “A lot of folk seem to think our forwards are flighty, but as we are getting older, we are actually getting more stubborn. When we were younger, yes, we were all about the ball, now we are able to mix it more. I’d like to think so.” It’s ironic that Casey mentions Barcelona — more than a club — is making his point because, in Kerry football terms, Dr Crokes is a brand in itself. It’s glib and easy to identify Colm Cooper with the club because he’s a bade of pride but there’s been lines of quality forwards and creators before him of every shape and skillset. One of them, O’Shea, is also one of the best creative coaches in the GAA. There’s nature and nurture at work here. O’Shea oversees the club’s nursery programme on Saturday mornings, right down to the under-sixes. “We have a lot of very good forwards who know when to make the right run, but Pat has zoned in on that this season,” says Casey. “Maybe over the last few years, we were almost predictable in our play. We just wanted to get it and move it, whereas now maybe we think a bit more about the game and manage the ball a bit better at times. On occasions, we were desperate to break quickly and get it to the full-forward but now there’s a bit more method because teams are setting up very differently — they could have packed defences, sweepers. As we mature, we realise sometimes it’s more important to play it around, retain it.” There’s an admission of nature, too: “But when you are in the middle of it, it doesn’t seem we are doing anything different than we’ve been doing since we were young fellas.” Winning a lot of titles and admirers while they’ve been enjoying themselves has had other positive spin-offs for the Killarney club too. “We are trying very hard not to lose any players at any grade and success helps. I’ve really only copped that these last few years. The club tries to bring everyone through from minor and under-21, it doesn’t matter whether it’s to the senior team or the juniors,” says Casey. “There was a while there when the 18-20-year-olds were being lost, were drifting out of the club. A lot of my age group would have dropped off the scene in the few years after 2008 but are now back playing junior or with the C team for a bit of fun. That’s down to the fact that the club was doing well and it’s good to be involved with.”
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Post by buck02 on Mar 16, 2017 18:47:51 GMT
I watched a good bit of the Sluaghtneil semi final win. I was impressed with their half back line, obviously McKaigue was outstanding kicking 3 points and dominating Connolly but they also had two half backs, relatively small but pacey and ball players. I think the battle between the Crokes half forwards and Slaughtneil half back line will have a huge bearing. Crokes need to make these fellas defend and put them on the backfoot.
I think the open expanses of Croke Park will suit Crokes and when they bring on the speedy forwards they can in the last 15 minutes I think it will be the winning of the game for them, probably by 6 or 7 points.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 16, 2017 20:24:18 GMT
Yeah...i expect it to me close till fifteen from the end at which point the six subs cavelry by crokes should see them home.
Cuala are winning due mainly to goals from con ocallaghan at 14. If ballea double team him and stop the supply of good ball into him, i expect them to edge it.
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Post by Mickmack on Mar 16, 2017 20:52:57 GMT
The journey of two Kerry hurlers to take centre stage in All-Ireland club final
Cuala’s Darragh O’Connell and Ballyea’s Pat Joe Connolly will fly the flag for the Kingdom at Croke Park on St. Patrick’s Day.
THERE WAS ALWAYS something different about Darragh O’Connell, Timmy Weir says.
A dedication to his craft that set O’Connell apart from his peers is the chief facet of his make-up that Weir will always remember from his Abbeydorney days.
Weir has seen plenty of good hurlers hail from the Kerry village and its environs, but O’Connell was special. In 2008, O’Connell captained Abbeydorney to county minor hurling championship glory.
Weir was guiding the fortunes of the minors but O’Connell’s former team-mate and the club’s current senior hurling team manager Ian Maunsell remembers how an emerging young player effectively took charge of team affairs. That player was O’Connell.
“He nearly took over the training of the team,” Maunsell remembers. “He nearly took this personally, and he led from the front on everything.”
O’Connell delivered his winning speech ‘as Gaeilge’ after the final. His love of the native tongue stems from his mother, Patsy, a key member of the Ríocht running club in Castleisland who hails from the Dingle peninsula. Maunsell, a former Kerry senior hurler, remembers O’Connell’s last year with the club, and how he was the team’s sole scorer in a county SHC defeat to Crotta in 2014.
Maunsell also notes one of O’Connell’s trips to America (he has relations in San Francisco), and how he would watch a local American football team train, just to see how they did things. O’Connell always had pace, Weir and Maunsell confirm, but Maunsell describes how O’Connell stripped himself down to become even faster.
“Darragh was always known as being fast (but) he did a three-year personal training course to come back after than he was the first day. He pushed himself to a higher limit, no drinking or smoking. A complete health freak.” Ballyea's Pat Joe Connolly (left) and Cuala's Darragh O'Connell will face off against each other in the AIB All-Ireland senior club hurling final. Weir says: “I was the coach when he was U14, we went to the Féile that year. “I was still training him when we won the minor championship, he was captain in 2008.
“He worked very hard on his game. Other people would put a lot in on the day of a match but Darragh was preparing the whole time. “His fitness stood out and he concentrated on that. He got a personal trainer to get that right. “Obviously, he did a lot of hurling as well, very dedicated. A lot of players in Kerry wouldn’t have that kind of commitment, as regards keeping himself in shape and getting the work done.” Weir and Maunsell keep in touch with O’Connell still, whenever they can, via text messages and social media.
Maunsell is travelling to Croke Park for the AIB All-Ireland senior club hurling final, which pits O’Connell’s adopted Dublin club Cuala with Clare outfit Ballyea. For Weir, it’s a ‘wait and see’ job. A dairy farmer, this is a busy time of year for him and he may have to call in a favour or two on Friday morning. ***** Darragh O’Connell grew up in a rural area roughly nine miles from Tralee town. He lived three miles from the village of Abbeydorney, a sparsely populated area but a hurling heartland, nonetheless. Some youngsters dabble in football but hurling is the dominant game.
When he first came in contact with a young Darragh O’Connell, Timmy Weir knew that there was something special about him. “Oh yes,” he smiles. “He had the skill and he had a bit of pace. “But his dedication to getting there was the key thing. You could see it happening alright.” O’Connell, a 2011 Christy Ring Cup winner with Kerry and a three-time All-Ireland U21 B medallist, made the switch to Cuala in 2015, travel commitments to and from Wicklow and Dublin to the Kingdom proving too arduous.
He was almost immediately drafted into the Dublin senior set-up by manager Ger Cunningham, and made his debut in a challenge match against Tipperary in May 2015. You might think that there would be some grumblings of discontent in Abbeydorney and Kerry, particularly after losing such a stand-out talent.
Not a bit of it, Weir and Maunsell insist. Indeed, before O’Connell left his home club, officials organised a presentation of a signed jersey and a framed picture detailing some of his best moments there. “He was a major loss,” Weir admits. “But it was tough going, he was coming down to the county training, a lot of travelling.” And Maunsell also remembers how O’Connell once travelled up and down the country just to attend a 20-minute team meeting.
Weir himself is steeped in Abbeydorney tradition. He was a member of the team that won the county senior hurling championship back in 1974, as a 17-year-old. Abbeydorney haven’t won a county senior title since but Weir was coaching the team that contested a final in 2005, when Lixnaw won a replay. “We won a minor in 1971,” says Weir, a virtual encyclopaedia of Abbeydorney hurling matters. We didn’t win again since 1999, and then it was Darragh’s team in 2008. We haven’t won it since but we won the Féile two years ago for the first time in 40 years.” Abbeydorney may be a small club but it’s a progressive one. “Small place, small village, small population,” says Weir. “Two pubs, two shops, two primary schools. Our numbers would be quite small and while we’d struggle to field a team at underage, we always do. Almost every young fella has to play but they do, and that’s what it boils down to.” There’s an all-weather pitch in the Abbeydorney GAA grounds, a smaller all-weather training area, astro ball wall and a ball alley too. “And there’s a bar there as well,” smiles Weir. “We were one of the first rural clubs to have a bar, it’s been there since 1979.”
Maunsell, as well as managing the Abbeydorney seniors, is the club’s vice-chairperson. He hurled alongside O’Connell for a few years, Maunsell winding down his career as the young protege was starting out on his path. “He played in every line of the field for Kerry,” says Maunsell. “From corner back to corner forward. “I’ve gone to the Cuala games, the Leinster club final, I was at the Slaughtneil game and he seems to be improving. He’s getting stronger overhead but he’s probably the most natural hurler you’ll see, the way he comes onto the ball. “Our minor team in 2008 was nearly unbeatable but Darragh carried them to a different level. He drove them on, virtually took over the training himself. Even Timmy would say that. He made fellas be at training.
“Darragh is the most easy-going fella, you’d talk to him and no matter what you’d say, he’d listen. When it comes to hurling, he’s very serious and he’s proven it. “The best thing to say about him is that if you were in trouble in a match, he was the man to give the ball to, when you needed something big.”
Maunsell notes, however, that it’s not just O’Connell flying the flag for Kerry on All-Ireland club hurling final day. In the Ballyea ranks is Pat Joe Connolly, a three-time Kerry SHC winner with Ballyduff who’s now playing club football with Kilmihil and hurling with Ballyea. Connolly’s a tough bit of stuff, a former juvenile All-Ireland boxing champion who’s adapted quickly to life in Clare. “He’s a funny character, you won’t see too many Pat Joes around,” smiles Liam Ross, secretary of the Ballyduff club. Ross explains how Tony Kelly, Ballyea’s Clare star and the 2013 Hurler of the Year, visited Ballyduff recently for a presentation event.
“Tony talked about how Pat Joe is after bringing something different to Ballyea,” says Ross. “And how he’s probably one of the main reasons why they’ve reached the All-Ireland club. “That, coming from Tony Kelly, says a lot. They’re grateful for him but he’s a big loss to us, and a great gain for Ballyea.”
In his first full season with Ballyea, Connolly helped the club win the county senior hurling title and Munster crown for the first time. And in the battle of the first-time All-Ireland finalists, it’s a Kerry shoot-out between O’Connell and Connolly for Tommy Moore Cup success. “He (Connolly) won three county titles with us,” says Ross. “He also played in two Munster intermediate finals but we didn’t win either of them.” In 2011, Ballyduff lost to Limerick outfit Effin, before falling to Jason Forde-inspired Tipperary team Silvermines a year later.
“He (Connolly) had a fierce burst of pace,” Ross adds. “In the first few yards, once he was gone, he was gone completely, no catching him.” In the Munster final victory over Cork’s Glen Rovers, Connolly scored two points, and added two more in the All-Ireland semi-final win against St Thomas’s. Although he’s been named at corner forward, Connolly operates out around the half-forward line to good effect. “He’s a great guy,” says Ballyea chairman Paddy Moylan.
“When he came to Ballyea, he didn’t know anyone but he fitted in immediately. “What stood out was his athletic ability, his ability to read a game and give a pass. You could see that immediately, that there was something different about him. “And the way he interacts with the rest of the lads, they all like him. He’s brought a bit of freshness as well. He’s a good character, a fun character, and he was a great addition to the club.
“He’s generally named in the corner,” Moylan acknowledges. “But he seems to perform better in the half-forward line. He has the speed and ability to play almost anywhere but you see more of him when he comes out.” Moylan recalls Connolly’s first training session with the club, on a harsh winter’s night, with snow on the Kildysart Astro pitch.
“Cold and it wasn’t a nice time to train,” Moylan remembers. “But he got on with it and had a smile.” At Croke Park, one of the Kerry-men will wear a beaming smile at full-time. Who that is remains to be seen but the prospect of a Kingdom shoot-out was flagged well in advance by seasoned hurling observers in the county. Ross says: “That’s all the talk around the place at the moment. They’ll all be glued to the TV, anybody not travelling on Paddy’s Day. Darragh’s club is five miles away from us and that was the talk for the last couple of months, wouldn’t it be great if Darragh and Pat Joe were playing against each other at Croke Park? It was hop ball talk at the start – but now it’s become a reality.”
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Mar 16, 2017 21:17:25 GMT
Will be cheering for Crokes tomorrow but if I was a betting man I would be looking at Slaughtneil to win without conceding a goal.
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Post by glengael on Mar 17, 2017 13:20:31 GMT
Best of luck to the Crokes this evening.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Mar 17, 2017 17:47:57 GMT
Will be cheering for Crokes tomorrow but if I was a betting man I would be looking at Slaughtneil to win without conceding a goal. The first goal they conceded since November 2015. That was a stupid red card for their lad.
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Post by southward on Mar 17, 2017 17:49:24 GMT
Crazy red card to pick up by the Slaughtneil man. Unprovoked and under the nose of the linesman. What was he thinking? His manager must be going nuts.
Let's see if Deegan evens it up though.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Mar 17, 2017 18:29:43 GMT
Gooch 😍😍😍
Crap second half but who gives a *.
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Post by onlykerry on Mar 17, 2017 18:32:50 GMT
Well done to the Crokes - good win in a disappointing game. The red card was silly and a major factor in the game.
Suffered through the radio Kerry commentary and was so close to turning off the radio on several occasions. Brutal stuff from them.
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Post by haryegsnbaken on Mar 17, 2017 18:33:11 GMT
Heartiest congrats to nacrocaigh and the Dr Crokes squad and management.
Far from the beautiful game but who gives a monkeys.
Maith sibh go léir.
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inchperfect
Senior Member
No longer active member.
Posts: 272
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Post by inchperfect on Mar 17, 2017 19:02:28 GMT
Huge congratulations to the Crokes, especially Cooper. When he hangs up his boots, whenever that will be, he can rest easy knowing that he ticked every box there was to tick. I'm sure he was worried that he would retire with regrets regarding the club.
Superb play the way they ran down the last 5 minutes without a Slaughtneil player laying a finger on the ball, although if they had 15 players it would've been a bit more difficult.
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Post by ddtinexile on Mar 17, 2017 19:36:48 GMT
Yes congrats to the Croke, a win is a win is a win. Delighted for Gooch, has he's club all Ireland medal now.
The last six minutes of that game was yet another advertisement and reason why the hand pass must be curtailed. Bloody awful stuff to watch.
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