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Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Waterford look to a bright new future
All-Ireland MHC final: Waterford 1-18 Clare 0-10 BE it hope, pressure, or expectation, pinning too much of anything on a successful minor team is never a smart move. Such behaviour is even more ill-advised again since the age-grade dropped to U17. On a greasy Saturday evening at Semple Stadium, Waterford collected a fourth All-Ireland minor crown in the county's history. The 11-point winning margin bridged a 12-year gap to their most recent acquaintance with the Irish Press Cup. Waterford got right lucky with that 2013 class, if lucky is indeed the correct term. Of those who featured in the 65-year famine-ending win over Galway, the number of players that continued up the ladder to line out in senior championship reached double-digits. Such numbers from one minor crop is absolutely the exception to the rule. Take as contrast Galway's four-in-a-row of All-Ireland minor wins from 2017-20. We counted the number of players from across the four teams who played championship this year or pushed for championship involvement. The figure did not reach double-digits. The conclusion to be taken is thus: consistency of progression from one all-conquering minor team to the next is simply non-existent. Attempting to predict who will climb the ladder is a popular exercise, but ultimately a futile one. As should be now clear, minor victories are never dealt with in isolation. The focus is always to the future. From final whistle to senior forecasting. The future will not be overlooked here. There is a need, though, to stay resident in the present for a touch longer than usual. For as much as Waterford will hope and expect to mine senior hurlers from this crop in the years ahead, the Déise, in the here and now, so desperately needed this silverware. At all levels, Waterford have ceded ground. No emergence out of the Munster SHC in the six seasons of the round-robin structure. A single Munster U20 championship win in the last nine years - and that over Kerry. No win at all in their 13 most recent outings. The recent minor record not a whole pile better. Across 2022, '23, and 24, there were 13 outings and 11 defeats. And then happened 2025. Cork were the only team to better them in Munster, in both the round-robin and decider. The Déise kids regrouped for the All-Ireland series, downing Limerick, Kilkenny, and Clare to achieve a stunning change of direction in the county's underage fortunes. The Waterford supporters in the crowd of 15,411 will have spent some of Saturday's journey home plotting future silverware around goalkeeper James Comerford, corner-back Darragh Keane, midfielder Gearóid O'Shea, half-forward Shane Power, and full-forward Cormac Spain (the latter three accounted for 0-16 of their 1-18 total). We must first, though, celebrate the eight-game campaign these young talents and their teammates survived and thrived in. 'Long nights in January and February, and you are just wondering at times is this ever going to come through. It is days like today that makes all the work worthwhile. I couldn't be happier,' said Waterford manager James O'Connor. 'The more wins we got, the more belief grew within the group. Beating Kilkenny in the semi-final was the turning point. The belief shot through the roof after that. And you see then what happened today. 'In a lot of our games, we have started very poorly. And we said today we are coming out of the traps at 100 miles an hour. We didn't want to be trailing five or six points after 10 minutes. It started from the very start today. We got 1-2 on the bounce. It set them up for a strong hour.' Pierce Quann, put through by Dylan Murphy, buried the goal inside 68 seconds. Cormac Spain and Shane Power, the latter following a Jack Power intercept, pointed to push them five clear inside four minutes. The May 2 Munster round-robin clash between the pair was level on nine occasions before a late white surge. The closest the gap was here was three. 'This campaign has been unbelievable,' continued O'Connor. 'No words can describe what it will do for the county. And what it will do for those players, which is the most important thing, is out of this world. There is going to be belief there now in a bunch of players and a belief in our county in what we can do and what we can produce. 'It gives massive hope. When you have a winning team, it shows we are doing things right within the county. Going forward, we must keep the standards and structures we have in place 'This is the base of the senior team over the next five to eight years.' Scorers for Waterford: C Spain (0-11, 0-7 frees); S Power (0-3); P Quann (1-0); G O'Shea (0-2); T Kennedy, E McHugh (0-1 each). Scorers for Clare: J Barry (0-3, 0-3 frees); P Rodgers (0-1 free, 0-1 sc), L Murphy (0-2 each); B Talty, I O'Brien, D Murrihy (0-1 each). WATERFORD: J Comerford (Ballygunner); C Lynch (Geraldines), D Murphy (St Mary's East), D Keane (De La Salle); B Penkert (Mount Sion), H Quann (Lismore), T Kennedy (Mount Sion); E Burke (Roanmore), G O'Shea (St. Mollerans); P Quann (Dungarvan), J Power (Ballygunner), S Power (De La Salle); D Murphy (Roanmore), C Spain (Ballygunner), J Shanahan (Erins Own). CLARE: L Talty (St Joseph's Doora-Barefield); Z Phelan (Sixmilebridge), N Doyle (Éire Óg Ennis), J O'Halloran (Sixmilebridge); E Crimmins (Newmarket-on-Fergus), D Kennedy (Ballyea), C Daly (St Joseph's Doora-Barefield); G Ball (St Joseph's Doora-Barefield), E Cleary (Ballyea); B Talty (St Joseph's Doora-Barefield), R Ralph (Clarecastle), J O'Donnell (Broadford); I O'Brien (Cratloe), P Rodgers (Scariff), L Murphy (O'Callaghan's Mills). Subs: J Barry (Inagh Kilnamona) for Ralph (29 mins); G Marshall (Parteen Meelick) for Talty (45); D Murrihy (Inagh Kilnamona) for Cleary (52); J Gibbons (Whitegate) for O'Donnell (61); D Mahon (Clooney Quin) for Murphy (64). Referee: C McDonald (Antrim).
Irish Examiner
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Kilcummin kids looking to put Kerry village on the map
Kilcummin post office opens at 9am on a Friday, same as every other day of the working week. Such were the masses gathered outside from 7am on this particular Friday, you'd swear it was the last day for getting off the Christmas cards. There's no other comparison to do justice to the extent of local activity. Kilcummin post office was the designated meeting point. Four buses pulled in and pulled out at 7.30am on the dot. One bus for the players, two more for families, and a fourth for the last lot of supporters. In front of them was an almost six-hour journey to Letterkenny. The Donegal town is their base for the weekend, with a further one-hour spin onto their weekend playing base that is the Derry GAA centre of excellence at Owenbeg. Everything has been planned down to the last minute detail. Kilcummin team captain Darragh Keane preparing for John West GAA Féile Peile na nÓg There was a pitstop in Galway to break up the six-hour journey, a kickabout in the Donegal centre of excellence in Convoy to loosen out at the end of the six-hour journey, and a three-course meal at €28 per-person to refill the tank at the end of a long, long day. Kilcummin are on the road and a long way from home because of this weekend's Féile Peile na nÓg finals. For the third time in the club's history, Kilcummin are the Kerry flag bearers and Division 1 representatives. The two other occasions were 1992 and 2007. A young Mike McCarthy was the star of the '92 class, the 07' expedition marking the first goalkeeping chapter of current Kerry back-up Shane Murphy. Murphy's county teammate David Clifford spun out to Kilcummin the day after taking Cavan for 3-7 to take a session with the U15 boys. The county Féile winners recently showed up at a session of the club nursery to help out with the generation behind them. Heroes beget heroes beget heroes. Kilcummin Féile mentors Dinny O'Connor, Edward O'Sullivan, Tom Keane, Paul O'Donoghue and Sean Lynch. 'My own fella is involved and it is great to see the lads he would have grown up with, you saw them all starting off in the nursery at six years of age when they were first learning to kick a ball, to now going off to represent Kerry at national Féile,' says Tom Keane, one of the five mentors overseeing the team. 'It is fitting tribute to the lads for their input locally that they are getting the benefit of representing Kerry at national Féile in Division 1.' Belief was sown last September when the team won the Munster U14 Super 10s competition. County Féile success followed seven months later. As can be taken from the four packed buses that pulled out from the post office yesterday morning, the whole community is on board and behind this group. 'The excitement it has created amongst the community is phenomenal, and it is lovely to see the community working together in such large numbers. 'There's a massive focus within the club on the underage structure. We are a small little village outside of Killarney which is growing year-on-year for the last number of years. "We want to put Kilcummin on the map, we want to compete with the rest. We want to compete with the bigger clubs. And it is like anything, we need to start somewhere. Obviously you start at juvenile level and that is what we have done.' Conall McCarthy, Dean Moynihan, Daniel O'Sullivan, Eamon O'Donoghue, Darragh Keane and Aidan Huggard. In recent years, the club completed the €1m development of a new training field, walking track, dressing-rooms, and state-of-the-art gym. 'Everything is looking up,' continued Keane, who is a past treasurer of Kerry county board. The semi-final appearance of their maiden 1992 voyagers represents the outstanding Féile run by the club. Clonduff of Down, who coincidentally enough are in their group this weekend, tripped them up at the penultimate hurdle before going on to claim outright success. In keeping with the meticulous planning of the weekend, there's a room booked in Adare's Woodlands Hotel early on Sunday evening so the players can take in on the return leg home Kerry's All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh. Wouldn't they love to do so after an extended Féile run, wouldn't they love to do so after putting Kilcummin on the map.
