By John Harrington

A number-crunching accountant would tell you the possibility of St. Mullins defeating Cuala in Sunday’s AIB Leinster SHC Semi-Final just doesn’t add up.

The Carlow champions draw their players from a small rural village, whereas Dublin Champions Cuala are an urban powerhouse and one of the biggest clubs in the country.

They have 1,600 active members, draw their support from around 1,000 households, and every Saturday coach 300 youngsters at their Hyde Road pitches.

St. Mullins have nothing like the same playing resources, but one of the beauties of the club championship is that it’s often a great leveller.

Hurling is part of the very fabric of their being in St. Mullins, and that’s why their captain Jack Kavanagh insists they never fear any foe, no matter how strong they may appear to be.

“It's an old cliche, but it's not about the size about the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the dog and there's plenty of fight in this dog down here,” says Kavanagh.

“Cuala have a huge area to pick players from and the added bonus of a couple of lads from different counties too. I would have hurled against Darragh O'Connell for Carlow against Kerry, he plays midfield for Cuala, and he's a great hurler.

“They're blessed to get a lad like that. Anyone who hurls for us is from the parish. We don't get lads who are working here to hurl for us.

“I suppose it's a David versus Goliath. We'll be massively up against it but we believe in our ability. Losing isn't an option, we're going out to win it.  We have plenty of passion down here and plenty of hunger and we'll be going hell for leather.”

St. Mullins has long had a tradition of hurling excellence. They won their first county championship in 1932 and have since added 25 more, putting them comfortably on top of the roll of honour in Carlow.

Just over the border from Kilkenny – the River Barrow is the natural boundary – they take the sport just as seriously as their neighbours do.

“We're a small little parish down in the bottom of Carlow,” says Kavanagh. “We have only three pubs, no shops, hurling is all we do. We don't play football. Every kid who goes to school brings a hurl with them. As soon as you're able to walk you're given a hurl and a ball and that's all you know.

“In National School it's instilled in you too. We have a great passion for hurling down here. We're a small team from Carlow, but we love it as much as the big guns in Tipperary, Kilkenny, and all the other hurling strongholds.

“When I was growing up the lads I looked up to, three of them are selectors on this team now. My uncle Declan and all the senior team at the time were our heroes.

“I'm sure that when they were my age they had heroes that they looked up to and it just filters through that way. I see now myself, going around to the National Schools with the Cup, all the young lads would consider us as heroes.

“We can't understand why, but I suppose they just hope to someday be where we are, and they will be. I just think that's it, there's just a tradition there. We just love hurling, you can't go around the parish without anyone talking about hurling.

“You wouldn't drive through the parish without seeing someone with a hurl and a ball. It's fantastic.”
This is the third year in a row that St. Mullins have competed in the Leinster Championship, and they look a much more capable outfit this year than they did in the previous two.

On both of those occasions they were well beaten in the quarter-final by Westmeath opposition, but this year they turned the tables by defeating Westmeath champions Raharney in the quarter-final.

Kavanagh believes the appointment of former Kilkenny hurler, PJ Delaney, as team manager this year has helped bring them to a whole new level.

“No disrespect to previous management teams, but PJ has brought us on a fiercely,” says Kavanagh. “He brought a Kilkenny mentality to us. The work-rate and the discipline are probably the two main factors he's brought to it. We're a very disciplined team now and we work fierce hard.

“I do believe that all round we have improved in every sector of the field. This is PJ's first job, he's a young man, and he could probably still be hurling himself had injury not prevented that. He's gone into management now and I can't speak highly enough of him.

“He's very modern and he knows the way the game has changed over the last ten years. He's just brought great drills and great belief to this team. It's just fantastic that we're lucky enough to have him.

“There's no beating around the bush with PJ. He says what he thinks and he doesn't hold back. It's great, we need a lad like that, we don't need someone bluffing us. He's straight to the point and we take everything he says on board and it's stood to us.”

The odds might seem stacked against St. Mullins going into this match against last year’s beaten Leinster Finalists, but Carlow teams now have a self-belief that was perhaps once marked absent.

The general standard of hurling in the county has increased steadily over the course of the last 10 years or so, and the exploits of Mount Leinster Rangers who reached the All-Ireland Club Final in 2014 are another obvious source of inspiration.

St. Mullins handed out a heavy defeat to MLR in this year’s Carow County Final, and Kavanagh has no doubts they have the quality to put it up to any team.

“We believe in our own ability,” he says. “We know that we have some very, very, good hurlers all over the field that would probably make it on any team. Look, we're blessed to have them down here.

“What Rangers did a couple of years ago was great for them, but that was them. They go their little bit of luck along the way whichever team needs and hopefully if we get that bit of luck, and we'll need everything to go right to be in with a shout against Cuala.

“They're such a good team. They're experienced in Leinster and probably should have won it last year but they kind of didn't turn up against Oulart The Ballagh.

“We're going into unknown territory now, but we've nothing to lose and we're looking forward to it. We're in good shape, playing at home in Carlow, so we've nothing to lose. We're looking forward to the game.”

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