Kelly buys into the Loughmore way

Eamonn Kelly has been around the managerial scene for a long time now and has experienced a lot, but for him this will be his first Tipperary senior hurling final to be involved in with Loughmore/Castleiney.

By Shane Brophy

As well as being a senior inter-county manager with Kerry, Offaly, and Laois, he has been around the club scene also, winning a Clare senior title with Sixmilebridge in 2016 and a Laois intermediate success with Abbeyleix in 2022 before last year falling just short with Patrickswell in the Limerick senior decider.

Coming so close, it would appear surprising that Kelly did not remain with ‘The Well but their parting was amicable with the Kiladangan native approached by a number of clubs, and it was Loughmore/Castleiney that piqued his interest the most.

However, in agreeing to take over, it ran the risk of him coming up against Kiladangan which is why he had never taken on a team in Tipperary before now.

“I agreed to it with the fear of meeting Kiladangan,” he admitted.

“I was so disappointed to see Kiladangan beaten by Moycarkey but that meant I wasn’t going to meet them and that was my worst fear, but I would have had to go through it, and I had made peace with it as the year went on as you have a job to do.

“At the end of the day you will always be your own clubman.”

Taking on a club like Loughmore/Castleiney is an enticing prospect for any manager as you get to see what makes them tick, but also you run the risk of potentially upsetting the apple-cart if things don’t go well.

“My impression of them is even higher of where it was, and it was already high initially.

“This is the easiest management job I have ever had,” Kelly admits.

“It would be foolish of me to take any credit for where they are at because they have done this time after time.

“There are no egos. They just want to get the best out of themselves, and they set very high standards for themselves in terms of preparation and recovery, particularly with back to back matches. They are always asking; what should we be doing and where do we go.

“As a group, I have never met a tighter group, and even the backroom team and the ladies making the tea they are just all nice people.”

Initially, Kelly was asked to manage both the hurlers and footballers, and he would have a football pedigree having managed his own Kiladangan to an intermediate football title in 2017.

However, he wished to focus on hurling and helped that one of his selectors, Shane Hennessy, is the current joint-manager of the Tipperary minor footballers, with Laois’ Mick Dempsey remaining as football coach.

It has meant Kelly getting used to the dual mandate that is Loughmore/Castleiney and it has gone seamlessly so far.

“There has been no issue all year,” he said.

“They have won three times as many county football titles as they have hurling so they are a dual club and proud of being a dual club.

“If that were an issue for me, I wouldn’t have gone in there as I understood what they are.

“I was talking to their chairman about the football, and he said, ‘if you are that concerned, you can manage both of them.’ I understood then. They really love their hurling but love their football as well.

“They don’t really train for football until the start championship starts anyway and then it is every second week. That is daunting in terms of preparation as we will have one night to prepare this week for Toomevara, as we had only one night to prepare for Thurles.”

It does mean a busy schedule from the start of the club championship and next Sunday’s county senior hurling final will be the teams fourteenth championship game between hurling and football in sixteen weeks, with virtually the same group of players.

With Loughmore/Castleiney tipped annually to be at the latter stages of both competitions, to be able to cope that that, a lot of that work has to be done in advance Kelly revealed.

“We put massive work in from the start of the year, doing zoo training and trying to get the strength & conditioning side of things upped with back to back matches in mind and that has stood to us so far,” he said.

“Paul Treacy and Mikey Ryan have been doing that, and Aidan Stakelum is involved in the coaching side of things, and he has probably had a bigger impact than me, he is really a top-class coach, and the lads have bought into him.”

He added: “It is great while you are on a winning run, but the stakes are getting higher every week and once you get beaten now all bets are off.

“Having beaten Thurles Sarsfields, you have beaten a strong team but now we are facing probably the hardest working team in the Tipperary in the final, and one with a massive tradition.

“Toomevara are a very very hard working team. Their workrate is phenomenal, they have good hurlers, they know what they are about, have a top-class free-taker, have three McCarthy’s and two Delaney’s in their forward line who, on their day, are inter-county standard.”