Nenagh CBS Coach O'Donnell a surviving link from last Harty Cup final appearance

By Shane Brophy

It doesn’t feel like it, but it is twelve years since Nenagh CBS last played in a Dr. Harty Cup final and there are a number of links between that team and the current side.

Jack Peters, who was a player on the team in 2012, is now a teacher in the school and part of the management team along with Donach O’Donnell who was coach of the side that lost to Colaiste na nDeise from Waterford in that final.

This is O’Donnell’s second spell involved with the Nenagh CBS team, having stepped away for a few years in the middle of the last decade, to include coaching Limerick to a Munster senior hurling title in 2013.

But there is a special quality about this Harty Cup competition, something unique in the GAA, similar to ones connection with a club, and while students and players might be together in a school for five or six years, it creates a bond that last a lifetime.

“The fact that fellas are basically with each other all day every day, they are really tight,” explains Donach O’Donnell about what makes the competition so special.

“Then, it’s the standard of the competition is just so high, and then you are playing in the worst conditions, like the Fitzgibbon Cup. When I played in the Fitzgibbon (with Waterford RTC), you’d die for the fella beside you, you were living together and wanted to play for the, and it is the same kind of idea in the Harty.

“We are very lucky to be in the competition. There are very few schools that can compete at that level, and we are lucky in Tipp that in most years four or five schools take part.

“It is the standard bearer for schools hurling, and that is why schools want to be in it. Clubs sometimes prefer to win a ‘B’ or ‘C’ competition rather can compete in ‘A’, but most schools want to play in the Harty as it is so prestigious.”

Much like Munster’s first Heineken Cup win in 2006 after a number of disappointments, or Mayo’s quest still for another football All-Ireland, the chase for a breakthrough success in anything creates added excitement. It is more difficult in schools hurling where a team changes year on year, but this year Nenagh have been fortunate to hit the right balance.

“It is hard to get the right balance,” O’Donnell admitted.

“Nearly ten of that team or close enough to it, started last year. They are now a year older with more experience, stronger, fitter, faster, and more together.

“The fact they didn’t get out of the group last year was a bitter disappointment, and it is hard to get that together in one year as every year there are two or three of the top guys that move onto third level, and they all make a huge difference.

Quite a number of the Nenagh panel were involved in the Dean Ryan Cup success in November, including senior captain Darragh McCarthy as a mentor, and O’Donnell has lauded the leadership of his skipper.

“He’s a great young fella,” O’Donnell said.

“He’s doing his Leaving Cert, he is on the Tipp senior panel, and he is giving everything he has with the school. He is also after coming off a long season with Toomevara, not alone senior but under 21 and under 19, but is still very fresh and focused, and is very disciplined.”

That Dean Ryan success also elevated Nenagh CBS from a contending school to a winning school. Over the years, they would have looked on and watched the likes of Thurles CBS, St Flannan’s, St Colman’s, North Mon, and more recently Ardscoil Ris win the competition on a regular basis but the recent first time wins in the finals for Tulla and Cashel Community School gives Nenagh added belief that this can be their time but are fully aware of the challenge the Limerick school will provide.

“Ardscoil have been there are there abouts for the last fifteen years,” O’Donnell said of the five time winners since 2010.

“The year we won the All-Ireland (2012) we met them in the semi-final and beat them after a replay, and they had a star-studded team (including the likes of Limerick senior stars Cian Lynch and Will O’Donoghue).

“That (Nenagh) team were very similar to what we have now in that they were very focused, had a nice balance, and good age structure.”