County success is the pinnacle for Kiladangan captain Flynn
By Shane Brophy
There isn’t much new history that can be made when it comes to the Tipperary senior hurling championship, but we had one on Sunday when Alan Flynn had the honour of lifting the Dan Breen Cup as captain of the victorious Kiladangan team, just as his twin brother Paul did for their first success in 2020.
“It is special that the two of us have walked up the steps to collect the cup for this club, which means so much to us,” said the Kiladangan captain.
“To be given the opportunity to lead a group of players like this is unbelievable which is the biggest thing for us.
“It is the pinnacle of my career to captain these boys. I have the 2019 All-Ireland medal with Tipperary, but it does not come near the two county medals I now have.”
Kiladangan have done a lot of hurling since reaching a first county final with largely the same panel of players in 2016, when a naïve side were easily brushed aside by Thurles Sarsfields, but seven years on they have matured and adding this success to the first in 2020 validates all they have done on the field.
“This group of players deserved to win another county title,” Flynn added.
“They are too good of a team to have only one in the back pocket, no one can argue with that. “I know we left a couple after us but that is massive for a club like Kiladangan, a village, who have only come since 2008 and a lot of us have two of the biggest medals you can have in the back pocket is indescribable.
“So, when you finish and look back and say you have two, and who is to say we are finished, we will come back again next year, no doubt about it.”
In terms of the replay, despite Kiladangan getting off to a poor start and falling six points down after nine minutes, when they settled, they would dominate the remainder of the game, but seventeen wides ensured Thurles Sarsfields were always too close for comfort.
“I thought we hurled way better than Thurles today, if you are to peel it back,” Flynn added.
“They hit us a couple of times with scoring bursts, at the start and then midway through the second half, but apart from that, at half time we left 2-10 behind us and then missed another seven in the second half, we missed 3-17 today.
“I thought we hurled unbelievably well, our use of the ball and the way we moved it around, linked play all the time.
“We knew if you go four down in a county final, Thurles tend to sit back and they did a bit, leaving a lot of space around the middle for Deckie, Tadhg and Willie to link up, and myself, and if they look back, they might say they should have pushed up the field, but they didn’t, and it gave us the space around the middle, and we got the accuracy going near the end.”
This title will be celebrated well this week in the manner of their first as their 2020 success was largely impacted by Covid, but when the dust settles later this week, their focus will shift to representing Tipperary in the Munster club championship, something they didn’t get to do three years ago, and that will ensure they prepare as well as they can for the semi-final with Clonlara on Sunday, 19th November.
“One of my dreams was always to play in a provincial club championship so it was something we would have liked to do but first of all was to get a performance and we really got it today and the last day and thankfully we are going home with Dan Breen,” Flynn concluded.