Run to the final hasn’t been smooth for Kiladangan

By Shane Brophy

Taking over a county final winning team isn’t easy.

Brian Lawlor was the man in charge when Kiladangan broke the glass ceiling in September 2020 to win their first county senior hurling title. They came up just short last year in their defence when Thurles Sarsfields edged them out in the semi-final.

Many felt the same management would be well set to go again of a revived squad as retaining the title after winning for the first time isn’t easy, particularly as that same edge might not be there.

One thing that Kiladangan certainly are not short of are willing personalities to get involved with the senior team, or indeed teams at all levels. There is a policy that adult players get involved with juvenile teams, not only to inspire the next generation of players, but also give them the grounding as to what management is like for later in life when their playing careers come to an end.

For this season, a management team was put in place, including current Wexford manager Darragh Egan, former club stalwart player and manager Dan Hackett, Portumna’s Sean Treacy, retained from the previous management team, former Tipperary footballer George Hannigan, and Sean O’Meara, a former Tipperary intermediate player, having hurled with Shannon Rovers.

For O’Meara, coming on board was a tough decision as he has three sons on the squad in Dan, Tom & John, with all three set to feature at some stage in Sunday’s final.

“It was something I tried to avoid for as long as posible,” he said of getting involved with teams his sons were playing on.

“I got involved with the under 21’s in 2019 and we were lucky enough to win a county final. That gave me a small bit of confidence that it can work.

“But you have remove yourself from it. We dropped John for the Clonoulty game and had to bring him on after fourteen minutes.

“To be honest, our house is a funny house as we don’t sit down to discuss the merits of teams. It should be left to here (training).

“I am fortunate to be with a group of experienced lads as well and they are well able to get their message across too.”

It hasn’t been a smooth ride for Kiladangan to get to another county final. Their county league form was inconsistent. The blew hot and cold in games in the North Championship, epitomised by the final where they over-ran Nenagh in the first half but were over-ran themselves in the second to lose their hold of the Frank McGrath Cup.

It didn’t help that their squad were missing players throughout the campaign, but they looked somewhere close to their best in the county semi-final win over Drom & Inch.

“You have guys away with Tipperary (Barry Hogan, Alan & Paul Flynn), you have guys that went to America (Darragh Flannery, Declan McGrath & Billy Seymour) and guys who were injured (Willie Connors) so it was about managing it,” O’Meara explained.

“When the Tipp lads came back you were expecting this injection of energy, and this is with no criticism of the lads, it didn’t happen because some of them didn’t get a lot of game time and weren’t up to the pace what some of the lads were doing here.

“Then, guys started to come back from America and then got a few injuries. Willie’s injury was playing on a lot of lads minds as he was constantly here, and in fairness to him, he put in a huge effort to get back to where he is now, and against Drom we saw him back close to his best and a super performance.”

It can also be forgotten that Sunday’s clash with neighbours Kilruane MacDonaghs isn’t the first championship match this year between the sides as they met in the first round of the North Championship in late June when Kiladangan emerged victorious, after extra time.

“It was a strange match,” recalls Sean O’Meara of Kiladangan being ten points up at half time before Kilruane produced a stirring fightback.

“Kilruane were right in it until the last few minutes of extra time and we pulled away.

“There has never been an awful lot between the teams, and the fact it is a county final and a local derby doesn’t change that in any way. It is still going to be a challenging game for both teams.

“Kilruane have huge tradition. I am fortunate enough to remember very successful Kilruane teams in the seventies and eighties and they were extremely successful. That tradition doesn’t go away and is always there.

“But at the same time, a county final is a county final. The bit of hunger that they are going to bring to it because of the fact they haven’t had success for that long is going to need to be at least matched if not bettered by us as they are traditional side who are back in a county final where they always wanted to be, and it is then on the day as to who performs.”