Athenry's wizard used a magic wand

If Eugene Cloonan ever tires of hurling, the Galway wonder-kid might consider running relays. He would certainly have no problem with the baton handling.

It emerged after the AIB club hurling championship final at Croke Park that the Athenry sharp-shooter actually banged home the vital equalising goal in the last minute of normal time with an opponent's hurley.

After a prolonged skirmish to the left of the Hill end goal-mouth, Cloonan emerged from the crowd and hammered home the match saving score. Somewhere in the move, he was stripped of his own hurl, bent to retrieve it, finished the move and realised that the stick was too heavy to be his own. So he threw it into the net and went in search of his own wand.

"The lads were talking about it last night, it was a case of `do you mind if I borrow your hurl'," said Pat Nally yesterday.

The Athenry manager admitted that he was so relieved by the score that he wouldn't have cared whether his forward had used a baseball bat to send it home. But he agreed that the sequence of events was extremely rare, perhaps even unprecedented.

"I have certainly never heard of anything like it. We were just thanking our lucky stars. I think Eugene just found himself without his stick, saw what he assumed to be his hurl lying there, picked it up and scored."

It is thought that the hurley might have belonged to Graigue Ballycallan full-back Pat O'Dwyer, who had a truly excellent afternoon for his side, epitomising the fire and skill that enabled the Kilkenny team to construct 1-5 without reply at a pivotal stage of the second half. That feat took them to the threshold of their first All-Ireland title.

"From a neutral perspective, it was a hard loss but they should be proud of their performance in their first All-Ireland," said Nally. "As I said to them afterwards, it is the sign of a good team that rises again and they will do that. We ourselves lost in 1988 and in 1995 before coming back to win."

Nally embarked on a series of switches which effectively saved Athenry from ruination at a time when they were incapable of blocking Graigue's surging attacks, bringing in Shane Donohue, Dermot Cloonan and David Burns and switching Cloonan with Joe Rabbitte.

"Eugene had the central influence on the game because not only did he win great ball, he delivered it well also. I thought all our substitutes did well. I felt that we weren't batting the ball up-field quick enough during Graigue's best period and Dermot (Cloonan) began to do that effectively. David Donohue was taken off just to get the balance right and then went back in to score 1-2. But I also felt Michael Crimmins had a massive part to play and Brian Higgins.

"Rabbitte did well and Paul Hardiman had a fine outing. In extra time the scores came easily so it was a lovely thing to be on the line as manager. But in normal time, it was looking bad."

But then Cloonan worked wonders with, well a wand.