O’Meara aiming to take Kiladangan that final step

By Shane Brophy

As appealing as the Kiladangan job was for 2023, it was also unappealing. How so, you may ask?

Firstly, when you take over a team that lost last year’s county final, after a replay, there isn’t much to improve on bar winning it the following and finding that last inch is always the hardest. The big risk for a new manager is that you take them backwards and that was the challenge Clare native John O’Meara took on when he agreed to head up the Kiladangan management team for this year. George Hannigan, Darragh Egan and Sean O’Meara were remaining from last year’s disappointing final loss, with John O’Meara providing the new voice.

“Lads are hurling fairly well all year to be fair to them,” he said.

“I wouldn’t have known what has happened over the last number of years, I can only judge what I have seen this year but to a man, anything they have been asked of, they have done this year.”

O’Meara was at the helm of Patrickswell in Limerick last year, but it was in his native Sixmilebridge where he made his name as a manager, guiding the club to three county senior titles in five years, 2013, 15 & 17.

Previously also club chairperson and secretary, he also this year chaired the club’s new hurling development committee, one of whose recommendations is the appointed of a full-time club games development officer which will be fully funded by the club.

He is also an All-Ireland winning player having lined out at full forward in the Clare team that won the minor title in 1997, benefitting from the first year of the backdoor having lost to Tipperary in the Munster final.

So, venturing into the club scene with Tipperary for the first time, what does he make of the local championship here?

“Definitely, the standard of hurling in Tipperary is massive,” he said.

“You see that with three of the quarter finals there was only a score difference between them all, and three of the teams were red hot favourites going in so actually it doesn’t matter as the gap is nowhere near as big between a lot of the teams.

“The Toomevara game wasn’t a nine-point game and anyone who says that I wouldn’t take notice of them as it wasn’t anything near it but the closeness of the teams, on any given day any team can take out another team and we have seen that this year.”

Testament to that was Kiladangan recovering from a North Final loss to Nenagh a week before handing a nine-point beating to Thurles Sarsfields when the sides met in the first round of the group stage in late July, and O’Meara feels that game will bear no relation to what will be served up on Sunday.

“We were coming off the back of having lost the North Final the week before and we needed a result to kick off the county championship,” he recalls. “That match will have little bearing on the outcome as it is a final and it takes on a whole life of its own. All we are looking at if we can get another good performance out of our guys and if that is good enough on the day, excellent, and if it is not, so be it.”

He added: “The way we operate with the guys is, today is another match and the next day is no different.

“I don’t think it is a hunger of having to win the championship, there is a hunger about trying to improve and be the best you can be every day you go out. I thought we hurled reasonably well against Holycross/Ballycahill, and I know a lot of people would have said that Kiladangan were poor but if you look back on it, we got 2-17 from play and any day you can do that you have hurled reasonably well against a good Holycross team, so there is ambition to try and improve yourself each day you go out and get a better performance than the last day and the next day will be no different.”