A win to savour for new Éire Óg

By Shane Brophy

Nenagh Eire Og brought their total number of North Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship successes to ten on Sunday, and this will arguably go down as the best of the lot.

It wasn’t just the fact they overturned the seven-point half time disadvantage; it was also how they kept coming back after shipping blow after psychological blow. More talented Nenagh teams of that past would not have come back but such was the resolve this group showed in that second half, you can’t underestimate what this could do for them going forward.

It is too early to suggest this is a new Nenagh, but it certainly is one that pleased everyone of their supporters in the bumper crowd at MacDonagh Park in Cloughjordan. This felt like a North final of old, playing in searing heat at the height of summer, in front of a big crowd, and it got a match worthy of such an occasion.

Kiladangan were excellent in the first half, full of pace and invention that Nenagh Eire Og struggled to live with. The fact that Kiladangan had two tough games on route to the final looked to be standing to them whereas Nenagh, weren’t tested by Templederry, and were off the pace in all aspects in the opening period.

However, all that changed after half time. Securing the services of former Borris-Ileigh manager Johnny Kelly looks to have paid immediate dividends as you could see his finger prints all of this performance, particularly their workrate and application when they got up to speed in the second half.

When they got going it was just a flood from Eire Og and but for the concession of a soft goal to Paul Flynn which then led to the red card for Conor McCarthy in the aftermath following an incident with Bryan McLoughney, this was a second half domination from Nenagh, 2-11 to 1-5.

However, the manner of how they won the game, overcoming the large deficit, the loss of their skipper Barry Heffernan to injury early in the second half, and the red card in the 49th minute, will bring them on a tonne.

It was a complete transformation in the second half as Kiladangan led them a merry dance in the first. The holders played at a high tempo with goalkeeper Barry Hogan getting the ball back into play quickly and with sharp handling, they worked some great scores for Darren Moran, Jack Loughnane, Joe Gallagher, and Matthew Cleary. On top of that, Sean Hayes and Bryan McLoughney continued their fine form in the North Championship with Hayes landing three from play in the opening half while McLoughney scored 1-5.

It was almost too easy coming up to half time where Kiladangan became wasteful in their shooting and looking at the scoreboard at the break, 1-13 to 0-9 didn’t reflect the dominance they had.

However, Kiladangan showed frailties against Kilruane and Toomevara of giving up big leads after half time and they failed to learn their lesson and got burned in a major way.

Better teams than Nenagh would have folded at the sight of their skipper Barry Heffernan going down in major discomfort early in the second period, but Nenagh seemed to get energy from it.

As well as that were the changes made to their defence, firstly Sean Phelan, and then Mark Carey, for the stricken Heffernan, brought an energy and aggression to proceedings while Conor Hennessy was more comfortable away from the full back line where Adam Gratton really clamped down on Paul Flynn who had one of his quietest games for Kiladangan, despite finishing with 1-1.

Nenagh were also better structured after the break with Cian Crowley getting on a lot of ball at wing forward with Nenagh now using it better, after being too direct in the first half and giving Alan Flynn a sore hand such was the amount of ball he was cutting out.

In that first half for Nenagh, one of the few shining lights was Jake Morris who was really on his game. Every time Eire Og needed a big ball to be won, he delivered, including one superb second half catch which led to Tommy Heffernan’s equalising score.

After Paul Flynn had beaten Mark Tuite at his near post for Kiladangan’s second goal, you expected the holders to kick on, but Nenagh refused to yield as they attacked with intensity, and forcing Kiladangan into conceding frees, from where Michael Heffernan was in form, scoring all bar one of his seven at goal, finishing with ten in total.

While Nenagh have been very much evolving over the past year with new young faces coming into the panel, it was one of the old soldiers who played a key role down the stretch with Hugh Maloney coming in on 57 minutes and his impact was dramatic. Within seconds, he won the ball in the right corner and sent in a high delivery toward the square to where Jake Morris caught in a forest of hurleys and surrounded and having nowhere to go, somehow got a connection to flick the ball past county colleague Barry Hogan.

Morris subsequently won a free for Heffernan’s lead score and after he added another to cancel out a Bryan McLoughney free, it was left to Hugh Maloney to put the exclamation mark on Nenagh’s win with a 67th minute point from play, and a victory that will be savoured for many years to come.