Changing the narrative

The semi-finals of the Cork senior ‘A’ hurling championship were played on Sunday. 27-time champions Glen Rovers, famed for a production line that has included Christy Ring, Jack Lynch, Seanie McGrath, the GAA’s all-time leading scorer Patrick Horgan and most recently, the Downey brothers, Rob and Eoin, were up against Castlelyons.

For Castlelyons to be keeping that sort of company when arguably out-hurled by Tooreen 10 months ago in the semi-final of the All-Ireland Club intermediate championship, says plenty about the quality of Mayo’s standard bearers. Niall O’Leary played at corner-back for Castlelyons in that 1-12 to 0-13 win against Tooreen, just as he did for Cork last July when one of the all-time great All-Ireland SHC finals saw the Rebels pipped by Clare after extra-time. It was a Castlelyons side that also included Colm Spillane, a winner of two Munster SHC titles, and another former Cork panellist in Colm Barry. After 48 minutes not a single Castlelyons forward had managed to score from play against the Blue Devils.

It was a sign of just how far Tooreen had come that they were so bitterly disappointed to lose to a team of Castlelyons’ quality; several of the opposition’s players were multiple Cork SHC winners with divisional outfit Imokilly and yet for three-quarters of the match the Mayo representatives were undoubtedly the better side.

Tooreen had led 0-9 to 0-7 but their misfortune 12 minutes from full-time was the concession of a rather slobbery goal from a long ball pucked into the square after which the Cork outfit did little more than collapse across the winning line by two points.

“It’s a bad way to lose. You have to capitalise when you are on top and if you don’t get the scores to back it up, letting in a scrappy goal can happen,” Daniel Huane reflected this week. The Tooreen midfielder is gearing up for Saturday’s Mayo SHC final by using the hurt of last season as fuel for the fire against old rivals Ballyhaunis.

Two points was also the margin by which Tooreen, in January that same year, had agonisingly lost the final of the All-Ireland Club intermediate championship to Monaleen of Limerick, who had to wait until the six minutes before full-time before getting their noses ahead of the Connacht champions for the first time. Donnacha Ó Dálaigh, held scoreless in the first-half by an inspired Tooreen defence, struck five points from play in the second-half, was called straight into the Limerick panel and by year’s end was an All-Ireland SHC medallist. Ó Dálaigh scored 1-1 for the Treaty Men in their victory over eventual All-Ireland winners Clare in the opening round of this year’s Munster SHC.

Declan Dalton, who togged at wing-forward for Cork in this year’s All-Ireland SHC final, and Ger Mellerick, who came off the bench, were other Imokilly hurlers who were also part of the Fr O’Neill’s side given its fill by Tooreen in the 2020 All-Ireland Club intermediate championship semi-final. It looked like a famous win might be on the cards when the Mayo side drew to within two points of the Cork side with five minutes remaining but 10 points from Dalton – and some wayward Tooreen shooting – finally got Fr O’Neill’s over the line. Kenny Feeney, who scored one goal, had rather harshly been denied another by the officials during Tooreen’s second-half surge and four points ended up separating the teams.

“We’re able to put it up to these lads, we’re not a million miles off them, and a lot of the time it’s probably just getting our heads around that and actually backing ourselves to get over the line,” says Huane, a Process Development Engineer at Medtronic in Galway.

“I’ve no doubt if we were playing in Cork or Limerick that a couple of our lads would be in [the county set-up] too. You look at the defending of DK (David Kenny) or Coyner (Stephen Coyne) or the attacking threat of Shane Boland, Liam Lavin or Eoin Delaney, the skill levels, there’s no difference just because they’re from Mayo. So a lot of it is about forgetting the narrative around Mayo hurling.

“Losing to Castlelyons took a long time to get over and because there were similarities to how we lost to Monaleen the season before, that added to the disappointment," Huane concedes. "Going forward, it’s something that we’re going to have to improve on, closing out games. The last 10 minutes are the most important and if you lose that last 10 it’s a disaster.” 

But if Tooreen, winning the last four Connacht championships against the best intermediate clubs in Galway, have been the one team actively defying Mayo’s fourth tier inter-county status, Ballyhaunis have never been more than a handful of points off their next door neighbours in recent county finals either - and would love the opportunity to prove themselves at provincial level too.

“If you look at their fifteen, they have a lot of lads there with an awful lot of experience and some real quality,” admits Daniel Huane who tore ankle ligaments in this year's National Hurling League Division 3 final against Sligo but returned in time to feature for Mayo in this year’s Nicky Rackard Cup final.

“If you look back at Mayo’s season, some of our main players will be main players for Ballyhaunis on Saturday. Eoghan Collins has a full year of Mayo hurling behind him which will stand to him and Adrian Phillips and Cormac, they’ve all pushed on massively in the last couple of years. That front six for Ballyhaunis does pose a real threat and we’re well aware of that. Jason Coyne is back from Australia as well. They have plenty of firepower and then obviously, I don’t have to say anything about the quality of Keith (Higgins); I think he’ll still be the fastest player on the pitch the next day which says it all. He’s a ridiculous athlete.” 

Higgins scored nine points the last time that Ballyhaunis won the Mayo SHC final in 2020 but last year’s clash was a dour affair. Daniel Huane hit the last point of a first-half that saw Tooreen take a 0-6 to 0-5 lead to the dressing-room. The game finished 0-13 to 0-8 with hosts ‘Haunis left to rue shooting a dozen wides.

“They’re probably not the best games to watch and it’s mainly because we probably know each other too well at this stage. It allows both teams to shut down the areas they want to shut down,” explains Huane.

“And there’s probably a slightly different pressure around the county final and the rivalry which feeds into it too. A lot of the time they are more tactical match-ups than they are outright games of hurling. I imagine they are not an enjoyable watch a lot of the time.” 

But as much as hurling is a spectator sport, Tooreen will care not how they win, only that they do – particularly when they’re on home turf.

“The season is next Sunday and we’re not looking past that by any means,” assures Huane. “When you do, that’s when you get caught.”