The great achievers
KILLINAN END
Sport is curious in the sense that the more competitive it seems to become the less competitive it actually is in the winners’ enclosure. A strange claim perhaps but consider the evidence. It is probably widely accepted that never before have teams been better prepared in the context of knowledge available to them. Statistics and video analysis are readily to hand and it surely allows teams to maximise their potential. Easy availability of transport makes it easier and more practical to have regular training than it would have been half a century or more ago. All things considered there really should be no such thing as an unprepared or even an underprepared team in this day and age. So, the best foot forward for everybody should ensure ferocious competition and make winning competitions more difficult than ever, at least in theory.
It seems quite odd then that in a year when Éire Óg Ennis won their first County Senior hurling title for 35 years, they followed it up a week later by winning football’s equivalent. To be fair this is stretching it slightly considering that the Ennis club won the football title for the fourth time in five years. But the big juice was the double. And this remains surely one of the greatest club achievements in any county in any era. What is perhaps truly remarkable is to be doing this in an era of such apparent competitiveness.
There may be a case, and history will be the judge ultimately, that regular rules and expectations do not apply in the case of Loughmore/Castleiney. Perhaps such a platitude glosses over the nature of their achievements of a couple of doubles in our own fair county and still being in the mix for more. Not too unlike the double achievement of Cork in 1990 at a time when they were on the short list for either hurling or football All-Ireland titles in any given year, the true extent of the achievement was perhaps not appreciated fully at least by those of us who lacked a mature perspective in those days. Perhaps when the current Loughmore/Castleiney generation combs grey hair we will look at them in wonder.
Na Fianna ruffled a few traditionalist feathers last year with their destruction of Cork's representatives in the All-Ireland hurling final. That club is now on the brink of arguably an even more remarkable achievement. In last year's Dublin hurling final the club had its most difficult game in the entire championship against Kilmacud Crokes. They were lucky to escape on that day with a very very late goal pinching a win. It augurs well for them that last weekend saw a twelve point win over the same Kilmacud team in this year’s semi-final. But most notable of all is that the club is also poised to play in Dublin’s County Senior football final which must surely be one of the strongest such competitions in the country. In an era when teams are more finely tuned, and in a county where such fine tuning is probably broader and deeper than in the majority of the 32 counties it is a fair achievement.
Of course it does seem across all sports, amateur, professional, team or individual, that greater preparation and more dedicated backroom teams make the strong stronger and the life of those with fewer resources even tougher.
Amid all this talk of doubles let us spare a thought, half a century on, for one of North Tipperary’s great achievers. In 1975 Kilruane bubbled over with potential. Minor and Under-21 titles to beat the band were being magnetically attracted to that club in the early years of the 1970s. Something truly extraordinary appeared to be brewing in Lower Ormond and sure enough the latter half of the ‘70s would be painted black and white and then some. With the passage of time and the minor matter of three-in-a-row of County Senior hurling titles plus an All-Ireland club hurling title, the achievements of half a century ago might naturally have faded into the background.
Let us now acknowledge a heady few weeks for the great Kilruane club when they played in both County Senior finals. They lost the hurling final in a replay to their neighbours Moneygall, but they were to feature in four of the next five finals on Dan Breen day and became legendary. What would not be repeated was their remarkable win over Loughmore/Castleiney in the football final. While it is unlikely that many around Cloughjordan would ever seek to dine out on their achievements on the football field, they remain the only individual club team from North Tipperary to have won the county’s senior football championship in over a century. Any glasses raised fifty years later are well deserved.