Glen Rovers relishing their arrival back on the big stage

For hurlers with Glen Rovers, accomplishment is a relative thing. Few GAA clubs in Ireland come with the attendant history and folklore of the Cork city club for whom two towering Irish 20th century figures, Jack Lynch and Christy Ring, shone during years when the club acquired a national fame.

But when the 2016 version of Glen Rovers claimed their second consecutive Cork senior title this autumn, they set themselves apart. No Glen Rovers team had successfully defended a title since 1960.

“It is something that the team deserves because it puts us up there now with good teams,” says Richie Kelleher, the senior manager who has been at the heart of the revitalisation of the Glen’s senior team.

Their recent win over Limerick champions Patrickswell set two notable landmarks. Tomorrow will mark the Glen’s first appearance in a Munster club final since 1976 and the first representation for Cork in any final over the past seven years.

During an uncertain decade for Cork hurling, the reappearance of Glen Rovers is a reassuring sign and, for Kelleher, it has been a story of progress by inches. Glen Rovers lost the Cork final of 2010 but made it back to play Sarsfields during his first term in charge, in 2014.

“We were motoring well that year but Sars destroyed us,” he recalls. “We just never showed up. We had been in a semi-final replay so it was our third week in a row out and it caught up with us and we were really put to the sword that day. [The result was 2-18 to 0-8]. That really hurt us. It drove us on for the next two years. So in 2015 we just wanted to put it to bed.

“We never looked beyond the first match in front of us. Even in the first round that season, we were eight points up against Ballymartin and we lost that match with the last puck of the ball. But going into the dressing room we knew we had hurled really well that night. We weren’t down on ourselves. We stayed positive and we stuck at it and had a couple of really hard games against Carrigtwohill and Bride Rovers and then we just put in a huge performance in the county final.”

That 2015 title was Glen Rovers’s first since 1989. In that year, they beat Sarsfields when John Fitzgibbon presaged the torture he would inflict on Galway in the 1990 All-Ireland final the following September, when Tomás Mulcahy, the Glen captain in 1989, lifted the Mac Carthy Cup.

Glittering history

Kelleher’s generation of hurlers followed the ’89 success and struggled to emulate the glittering successes as the power base moved, in the 1990s, beyond the three gigantic city clubs of Blackrock, St Finbarr’s and the Glen.

For Kelleher’s generation, it was daunting to try and establish themselves in the shadow of the club’s glittering history. “I played for about 10 years and, for us, we remembered the team winning the championship in 1989 and 1976 – forty years ago now but it was fresh in the memory of people then.

“The team I played on never reached a county final. We played in three semi-finals and that was as close as I got. So we played through the bad times. Young fellas today know about the history but it is so far back that it doesn’t affect them. Plus they won underage titles and have beaten the best teams in Cork in their age group and it has taken us a while to translate that to senior success.

“But look, they are eager to make their own history and we have the intercounty calibre players. But yeah, it was a big thing when I was playing because it was thrown at you. It is different now. Take Patrick Horgan: he has won two and lost two county finals. So history doesn’t faze him.”

Horgan has been sensational for his club in this campaign. The decision to switch him to a more liberating half-forward role helped to turn a tense county final against Erin’s Own in the Glen’s favour, Horgan firing six points over the closing 10 minutes as his team won by 0-19 to 2-11.

Their Munster semi-final match against Patrickswell was even tighter: a 0-15 to 0-14 win secured in stoppage time. Both are matches that Glen Rovers may not have won a year ago. Last year, they led Ballygunner by five points at the break but were ransacked in the second half.

“We are battle-hardened,” says Kelleher. “And this year we handled the time between the county final and the Munster championship better.”

Great opportunity

Critically, the re-emergence of the senior team has revived the energy within the club. The clubhouse bar is busier than it has been in years; the take on bingo nights is bigger, and their underage teams are winning titles. People want to get involved.

“We aren’t getting above our station. We have always had players here but it shows what a win can do. We have had plenty of bad days so we are enjoying this now.”

Week after week, the Munster club championship has produced winter gem after winter gem.

Mighty.

Thurles Sarsfields edged past Ballygunner in a thriller and then they in turn were upended by Clare champions Ballyea – 4-18 to 2-22 in a November hurling match just a week after the Banner club had claimed their first ever senior county title.

Shorthand will reduce the final to a shootout between Horgan and Ballyea and Clare virtuoso Tony Kelly. Both men will probably play critical roles but, beyond that, everything points to another Munster match-up that is all but impossible to call.

“Look, they are looking at us and we are looking at them and it is 50:50. It’s a great opportunity for both clubs. We feel we are ready to go and perform and that we will be right.”