Special group giving back to ensure future success

Special group giving back to ensure future success

The newly-constructed hurling wall, astroturf and floodlights at Tooreen Hurling Club.

The sign of any good club team in Gaelic games is how they give back and perhaps the most special crop of Tooreen players to come through is doing just that.

A gargantuan effort of fundraising and organisation has seen the completion of an additional hurling wall, astroturf and floodlighting for Tooreen Hurling Club. The facility will help cater for the club’s expanding underage numbers and many of the senior stars are helping with coaching the future talents.

Three of those players, Stephen Coyne, Stephen Lenehan and Shane Morley, manage the under-6 side, and all of them have kids involved in that age group.

“It's been brilliant. The club has grown because of the success of the senior team our underage numbers are up. We just completed an AstroTurf and hurling wall development at the club and a huge amount of fundraising went into that,” explained Tooreen chairman Pat Freyne. “That coincided with the fundraising that started approximately seven years ago. Everybody bought into that and there's a good feeling around the club at the moment and indeed the community and it's just brilliant. Long may it last.

“Particularly at our nursery, at under-6, under-8, under-10, I suppose everybody from the area sees the success of the senior team and sees how good they can play the game and how enjoyable it is to go and watch them, to get to that level. So there's a good buy-in for the area.

“I would say 90% of kids in the area are now playing hurling and we'll see those growth numbers at our nursery where we'd have anything between 20 and 30 kids at under-6, under-8 and under-10. I know that that bodes well for the future. We know we won't always be in this position to have such a good crop of players but to ensure, to give yourself the best chance of maintaining that level at senior, you have to put the time and effort in.

“That's why the club has been successful when you finish playing hurling, you go back and you start the grassroots training. I think that's very important.” Another All-Ireland semi-final appearance will happen this Saturday against Castlelyons – a fifth since their Connacht breakthrough in 2017. It may becoming almost an annual event but Freyne knows it won’t last forever and Tooreen are relishing every moment.

“We're still very conscious how special it is and we're absolutely not taking it for granted. We know we have special, proper players at the moment but they won't be around forever. We won't be winning Connacht titles regularly like this. This doesn't last forever.

“Particularly rural clubs go through cycles where you have strong teams and weaker teams. We're very much enjoying it. We're not taking it for granted but it absolutely is very special and we're very much looking forward to the challenge.

“The players know that as well. Some of them might not get other chances in All-Ireland semi-finals and you know it's a case of trying to take those chances when they're there.

“We got a taste of what it's like to be in Croke Park in All-Ireland. The group themselves are very ambitious, they want to get back there, they feel they have unfinished business but just as a community and as a club we want to savour that to get that feeling again.”

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