Cork Hurling To Fore Once Again!

Cork Hurling stood tall once again in the Pairc yesterday against all the odds. And it was Cork’s weekend all round as five of its exiled sons helped lead Belgium to an 8th Pan-E European Hurling tournament victory in a row and leave the team on the brink of a second successive European championship title.

Daire Cott led the way with a Player of the Tournament performance. He hurled with many of Sunday’s heroes; winning a Harty Cup with Midleton CBS and an All Ireland Minor in the mid-nineties. The skills which brought him to those successes may not be as finely tuned as before but they still shun brightly in the magnificent stadium which hosted round 2 of this year’s championship.

Accompanying him was a half-back line made up of myself and Conchur de Barra, who was himself, a serious contender for Player of the Tournament. Dominic King, a brother of Newtown’s JP, made his first appearance of the season and how we’d love to see more of his graft in the coming weeks. The final Corkman was a debutant, Timmy Donovan from Kilmacabea, hardly a hurling stronghold but European Hurling is more about endeavour and balls than raw skill and Timmy has the former in plentiful supply.

The post-match talk was of recalling Eoghan Kelly and Aidan Harte from Cork, signing up James Murphy on a full-time basis and breaking away to form ‘Cork Belgium G.A.A.’ That’s for the future though as there is still much to be passed on to our team-mates from the rest of Ireland.

Back to the Hurling and it was a day when our entire 17 strong panel contributed. We beat Lux in the first game on a score of 1-10 to 2-5 in a game littered with frees against us. As the day progressed we ironed out our issues in wins against Paris and Den Haag. The final group game was against a rejuvenated Zurich side. We wanted the clean sweep but still rotated en masse. We have acquired a good few lads this year that have not hurled much in recent times and like Aisake, their hurling is rusty but their will great. With each outing the hurling improves and Ciaran Kelly’s goal and assists were testament to that.

The game also witnessed what may be the shortest hurling career ever. Our rugby import Diarmuid Laffan, who has scaled the heights of U-20 Rugby World Cups, was unfortunate that his ‘welcome to European Hurling’ came in the form of an almighty blow to the knee. The fact he was able to walk off the pitch was impressive in its own right.

We finished the group undefeated and headed for a rematch with Lux in the final. The opening fixture gave us a sufficient scare not to allow for complacency and we took the game to them early. Still, we could not shake them off, despite a 2-3 to 1-1 lead at the interval.

However, with the likes of Michael Hough, Shane Ryan and Conor Magner’s paw leaping to the fore in the second half, we drove on. Eoin Sheanon bagged a handful of goals and Crusher swept all before him at the back. The final scoreline of 5-6 to 1-5 was deserved but maybe a bit flattering.

From a defensive point of view, I thought we were shaky. We didn’t communicate well, we fouled, we cleared balls aimlessly too often and we didn’t get in front enough. That’s a harsh assessment (none of us were brutal) considering we conceded a miserly amount of scores from play but we still weren’t up to our usual standards.

Our Ladies came within the width of a post of winning their first camogie title. Player of the Tournament Niamh Kennedy charged through the Lux defence in the final act of the game and with the opposing defenders closing down she unleashed a shot which was saved and bounced around the goal mouth for a few more attempts before going narrowly wide. Special mention should also go to their Cork woman, Sylvia McCarthy who gave an exhibition of defensive play, hooking and blocking and skutching all day! It was a disappointing day that also saw their midfield warrior Caoimhe break her collarbone and goalkeeper Mags damage her Achilles tendon. Both spent the weekend in a Luxembourg hospital and we wish them a speedy recovery.

On now to our home tournament on June 26th when we will hope to secure the European Championship on home soil.