Freyne: ‘It would mean the world to get back to Croke Park’

Tooreen Hurling Club have had their fair share of disappointing days and heavy defeats, which makes this golden era of success all the sweeter.

Before the launch of a provincial intermediate hurling championship in Connacht, Mayo clubs competed in the Connacht senior championship. On eleven of the thirteen occasions a Mayo side had reached the final, it was Tooreen who, unfortunately, were like a lamb to the slaughter when up against the might of the Galway champions.

Tooreen had put up valiant fights in Connacht finals against Ardrahan 1978, Castlegar in 1984, and famously pushed Athenry close in the 1999 decider, but more often than not, Tooreen were very much second best.

Tooreen sides were not bad by any means but the gulf was too much, and the introduction of the intermediate championship has given competitive hurling for the champions from Mayo as well as Roscommon.

“It was always going to be difficult to get past the Connacht staging in the All-Ireland series but the opening up of the Connacht intermediate competition to us has really given us a new lease of life,” said Tooreen club chairman Pat Freyne, who was given the man of the match award for his performance in the 1999 senior final against Athenry.

“It’s given us a level to play at that we're comfortable playing and able to challenge. Along with that, we've just got a golden batch of players that have stuck together. That core group has stuck together over the last decade. There's some great experience there, and we’re able to bring in younger guys as well. It's just a really good decade of success for us,” he told the Western People.

The Mayo champions entered the Connacht intermediate championship from 2008 but it did not reap immediate benefits for Tooreen, mainly because their rivals Ballyhaunis were Mayo champions from 2008 to 2012, so the Blue Devils never got a crack past the Mayo border.

After reclaiming the TJ Tyrell Cup in 2013, Tooreen reached the Connacht final but fell to Kilnadeema-Leitrim, ironically a day that current Tooreen and Mayo manager Ray Larkin would come up against his home club from Galway.

Defeats in the 2017 and 2018 finals followed before Tooreen broke through the glass ceiling in 2019 and they haven’t looked back since, becoming the most successful side in the competition with six victories.

“The experience that's built up there over the years and all those near misses we've had, you learn from all that, you learn a lot from the losses,” offered Freyne. “There's a good core group there at the moment and they're an ambitious group. They're very level-headed, very steady. They've really had some great days out the last number of years and we hope we can keep going for a little while.” 

For a village of just over 400 people in what is predominantly a football county, what Tooreen have done is quite extraordinary. But in Tooreen, hurling is a way of life, starting all the way in the local national school. “We're very lucky to have a very supportive national school in Tooreen. If you look at the starting 15 or even the wider 20 or 25 of the panel, 90 to 95% of those guys go through Tooreen National School.

“The teachers there have always been very supportive of ingraining hurling into the kids, getting extra coaching sessions at school. They really get behind the senior team for various events. That just kind of indoctrinates hurling into the younger people and then that follows on with good underage structures and a good Bord na nÓg chairperson at the moment in Shane Morley. You can see that success breeds success and underage in the club is going very well too.” 

Freyne added: “It's not necessarily designed that way, but we have a lot of the ex-players that have settled around the village and in the area. They just love to come back and get involved in coaching so there is a tight kind of group.

“We try to hold onto any expertise we have and any past players, we try to get them involved coaching the club to pass the skills down to the next generation.” 

The chairman said ‘it would mean the world’ for Tooreen to get back to Croke Park. While they lost the All-Ireland final to Monaleen in 2023, he remembers fondly what it meant to the club and to the village.

“It’d be very special. The first experience getting there was just brilliant. So many people involved in the club, even though we lost that final, the whole weekend, the whole event, the whole experience, so many people said it was one of the best weekends of their lives.

“People that have been around the club and around the village for many years, it is very special. It would mean the world to us to get back there.

“For any club to play in an All-Ireland final in Croke Park, but a small rural club like ourselves, and the fact that we're seen as not from a strong hurling county, it makes it all the sweeter.”