Fr. O’Neill’s and Cork Hurler, Declan Dalton.
By John Harrington
You could make a very strong case for Fr. O’Neill’s victory over St. Finbarr’s in the Cork Premier Senior Hurling Championship as the stand-out result of last weekend’s senior club championship action.
2022 county champions St. Finbarr’s were many people’s favourites coming into this year’s championship but now their race is run after just two group games.
Never before this year had Fr. O’Neill’s won a match in the Cork Premier Senior Hurling Championship but now they’ve put two back to back and you get the feeling they’re not finished yet.
The three-point victory was achieved despite playing with 14-men for almost half the contest and was a pinch-me moment for Fr. O’Neill’s stalwarts who in the not too distant past would never have dreamed they’d be rubbing shoulders with The ‘Barrs never mind knocking them out of the championship.
This is a club, after all, that failed in its first 12 attempts to win an East Cork Junior Championship Final before they finally broke their duck in 1996.
They’ve been on a pretty wild ride in recent years winning the Cork Intermediate Championship in 2016, the Cork Premier Intermediate Championship in 2019, and the Cork Senior A Hurling Championship in 2022 having lost the final of that competition for the previous two years running.
They won an All-Ireland Junior club Championship in 2005 and narrowly lost the 2020 All-Ireland Intermediate Club Championship Final so they’re no strangers to big occasions in Fr. O’Neill’s, but last Saturday’s win over St. Finbarr’s was arguably their sweetest hour yet.
“It was super,” says Club Chairperson, Dan O’Connor. “It was like we were after winning a county final. People were on the field for at least a half an hour afterwards. The whole parish seemed to be on the field and we celebrated it because it was a huge occasion for our club.
“We celebrated against the 'Barrs because you have to mark these occasions. We obviously realise we've won nothing, but it was still an important milestone in the history of our club.”
The Fr. O'Neill's team that won the Cork Senior 'A' Hurling Championship in 2022.
Their rise to prominence in recent years is all the more impressive considering it’s been achieved with a fraction of the playing resources available to many of the teams they’re now competing with in the top tier of Cork club hurling.
Fr. O’Neill’s are very much a rural club based in the East of the County, and they make the most out of what they have out of necessity.
“We've two small villages, Ladysbridge and Ballymacoda,” says O’Connor. “We have just one school in the parish and typically at juvenile level it would take three age-groups to make up a team.
“That would be the tradition we've always had and as a result we're a very united because we have just the one school which I think has been very helpful to the club.”
That sense of unity was very apparent in the second half of last Saturday’s win when the resolve of the Fr. O’Neill’s players never wavered even after they were reduced to 14.
No-one flagged them as championship contenders at the outset of the campaign but many of these Fr. O’Neill’s players won a Cork Premier U21 A Hurling Championship together in 2018 so they don’t lack for self-confidence.
They have serious momentum and no-one in the club is putting a limit on their ambitions after last Saturday.
“We're very lucky to have a great bunch of players and we've had huge success with them,” says O’Connor. “They're very dedicated. They work very hard at it and we're very lucky to have them.
"They help each other with regard to commitment and knowing what has to be done. They're a very easy bunch to manage because they're all so dedicated to the cause.
“They've had a lot of success already. A lot of them have county medals with Imokilly already. They have played for Cork, played for Colleges.
“We have always believed in them and they believe in themselves as well. We do believe that anything is possible now.”
