Thurles Sarsfields management, from left: Mark Dowling (manager), Eamonn Walsh, Luke Jordan and Brendan Carroll. Photo: Bridget Delaney

Dowling provides a fresh approach for Sarsfields

By Shane Brophy

To help revive the fortunes of Thurles Sarsfields, the club made the decision to go outside the county. It worked to great success in 2005 when they ended a 31-year wait for Dan Breen when Cork’s Ger Cunningham was over the team.

This time it is Mark Dowling for Kilkenny, thirty minutes down the road from Dicksboro, looking to win Sarsfields first county title since 2017.

“I got a great welcome from Thurles and the lads,” he admitted.

“It is a great club to be involved with and the players have been great to work with.

“It has been a really enjoyable experience.”

The reaction of the team and management after their semi-final win over Kiladangan was akin to winning a county final itself but it showed how much it meant to get back to the final by dethroning the reigning champions.

“There was an outpouring of emotion at the end,” Dowling admitted.

“A lot of hard work has gone into the year and when you get through a semi-final which are always particularly dogged affairs, and it was tight and went down to the wire, it probably leads to that kind of level of celebration.

“Kiladangan were fantastic champions, and they did what all good champions do, they put up a fantastic fight and luckily enough we were able to match it the whole way which was pleasing.

“It was an incredible test but to say we hadn’t been tested is slightly unfair on other teams we had played. We have come up against some good teams all year and lucky to come through some matches as well and got breaks in certain matches.”

One noticeable aspect of their performances so far has been the change in approach, certainly going more direct than we were used to in their four-in-a-row run between 2014 and 2017, when the worked the ball into space a lot more. However, the Sarsfields manager said there was no major plan to shift the way they were playing.

“We take every game on its merits and look at what might best suit the opposition you are playing,” Dowling said.

“In relation to the players we have, they are capable of playing the game any number of ways; we have certain guys good in the air and certain guys that are better through the lines. There is no certain style we play, you can’t get boxed into that and you have to be adaptable and versatile.

He added: “I came in with a blank canvass in front of me and took players at face value. We looked at all available players and everyone was given a good run of things and a team started to evolve as it does over a season. It is a moveable feast in that sense and there are plenty of guys that have yet to feature and could at any day which is the way it should be.

“With any team, be it club or county, it is good to have new faces coming in to keep the thing fresh and keep the pressure on guys that might have been there for a little while and maybe are getting too comfortable in themselves.”

Loughmore/Castleiney provide formidable opposition and Mark Dowling feels the Mid final win over their rivals won’t count for anything.

“The Mid final is a long-forgotten thing,” he said.

“That was at a different point of the season when teams are only getting themselves together, so it is never a true reflection of where teams are at.

“Loughmore, this is their second county final in two years, so that speaks volumes for them and the way they fought back in the semi-final was an incredibly spirited comeback with huge belief, so we have no doubt about the size of the hurdle we have to jump.”