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 The Corkman Noel Horgan | |||
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ALTHOUGH he felt the disappointment as much as anyone at the time, it would be fair to say that John McCarthy now regards Newtownshandrum’s defeat by Blackrock in the 2002 county senior hurling final as a huge blessing in disguise.
Barring a draw, the long-serving defender, who already had two county senior medals to his credit, the first of which was won with Avondhu in 1996, had made his mind up ahead of the joust with the Rockies two years ago that it would be his last game in the green and gold colours.
In the wake of Newtown’s tame capitulation in that contest, however, McCarthy had no hesitation in stating that he was shelving all thoughts of retirement, making the point that he couldn’t walk away from it all on such a low note.
It was to prove a fructuous decision by any standards as McCarthy, appointed as team captain for 2003, has since enjoyed the distinction of leading Newtown to county and Munster club success.
And he is poised to join an elite group next Wednesday when Newtown throw down the gauntlet to Dunloy of Antrim in the AIB All-Ireland club hurling final at Croke Park.
Should Newtown prevail, McCarthy will become only the seventh player to skipper a Cork club to All-Ireland senior glory.
Denis Coughlan and Martin Doherty of Glen Rovers, Denis Burns and Waterford-born Jim Power of St Finbarr’s, Ger Power of Midleton and Blackrock’s John Horgan are the men that have previously captained an All-Ireland winning club side from the Rebel County.
Indeed, Horgan collected the trophy on three occasions during the seventies when Cork teams were always expected to be there-or-thereabouts.
After Tipperary’s Roscrea won the inaugural competition in 1971, for instance, Blackrock, the Glen and the Barrs shared seven of the next eight titles.
And the only other club to get a look-in in this period was James Stephens of Kilkenny, victors over the Rockies in the 1976 final.
Back then of course, the Cork county championship, as had invariably been the case down through the decades, was essentially a three-horse race, not least because the Rockies, the Glen and the Barrs were able to supplement their home-grown talent with several top-class players from other clubs in the county and beyond.
It meant that Cork’s big three could usually field a team that would have been a match for most inter-county sides, and, after the battle for county championship honours had been sorted out, their success in the Munster and All-Ireland club series was almost as inevitable as night following day.
Immensely satisfying though Cork’s rich return in the early years of the All-Ireland club competition was, it has to be admitted that there was a certain degree of monotony attached to it.
The fact that only a handful of teams had a realistic chance of making an impact also meant that the interest of the general public in the inter-county club hurling competition was minimal in those days.
It’s a completely different story today, and one of the biggest dates on the GAA calendar is March 17 when both the hurling and football All-Ireland club finals are staged at Croke Park.
There can be no disputing that the introduction of tighter transfer rules resulted in the gradual diminution of the dominance enjoyed by Blackrock, Glen Rovers and St Finbarr’s on the senior hurling scene in Cork. And it led to a levelling off in standards as well on the provincial and national stage in the early eighties.
After the Barrs made it a sequence of ten wins for Cork in Munster when beating Roscrea in the 1980 final, Midleton kept the flag flying by collecting provincial honours in 1983 and 1987.
Midleton also lifted the All-Ireland title in the ‘87/’88 season, but, remarkably, no Cork club has managed to scale the summit in the meantime.
Indeed, the drastic slump in Cork’s fortunes is further underlined by the fact that not as much as a Munster title was brought to Leeside until Newtown did the business in the final against Patrickswell last November.
And it can be safely said that if someone had suggested following Midleton’s triumph over Galway’s Athenry 16 years ago that Newtown would be the next Cork club to contest an All-Ireland hurling decider, his or her sanity would have been seriously questioned.
Go back just eight short years, and that would also have been the case because Newtown’s aspirations amounted to nothing more than winning the county intermediate title in 1996.
They achieved their goal that year, but they fell at the first hurdle in their first two seasons operating in senior ranks.
In 1999, however, came the initial indication that Newtown might soon be ready to emerge as a force to be reckoned with in senior ranks when they ran defending county champions Imokilly to two points in the quarter-final.
And they made the historic breakthrough in 2000, with a youthful side containing several players who were to share in the club’s third consecutive county under-21 success later that year.
For the reason that they hadn’t numbered either holders Blackrock or Imokilly — the two teams that had headed the ante-post betting on the 2000 county senior championship — among their victims along the way, however, Newtown didn’t get the credit they deserved for their initial triumph in the top flight.
And the begrudgers really had a field day after Newtown were unceremoniously dethroned by Imokilly at the semi-final stage in 2001, and fell down badly again against Blackrock in the 2002 decider.
But there was good cause to suspect that the best was yet to come from a Newtown side that had arguably won the county ahead of schedule in 2000.
And John McCarthy’s decision to put his retirement plans on hold after the slump to Blackrock in the 2002 county final reflected the general belief within the squad that they hadn’t done themselves justice in that match.
Close on 18 months and eleven championship games later, even Newtown’s harshest critic would have to acknowledge that they have removed all doubts about their true worth.
Victories over Midleton, Ballyhea, Imokilly and Sarsfields, after a replay, earned them another county final tilt at the Rockies.
And they duly buried the bitter memory of 2002 when turning the tables on Blackrock in most emphatic fashion last October.
With their pride and reputation restored, Newtown then set their sights on the Munster club title.
And the impressive manner in which Toomevara and Patrickswell were dispatched before Christmas provided ample evidence that the team, sunk by Mount Sion on their maiden voyage at provincial level three years earlier, had matured and developed considerably in the interim.
Fr Murphy’s of London were never likely to present a serious obstacle to Newtown’s progress in the All-Ireland series, but it was always on the cards that Newtown’s credentials would be sternly tested in the semi-final clash with O’Loughlin Gaels of Kilkenny.
That went to two games, and Newtown needed a late point by Ben O’Connor from a free to emerge from Thurles on February 15 with their All-Ireland hopes intact.
Ironically, Newtown played as well as they have ever done during the second quarter of the drawn match, and they looked to be firmly on course for victory when they led by six points with 20 minutes remaining.
And their late lapse in that game was largely self-induced though a combination of indiscipline in defence and a less than inspired reshuffling of their attacking forces.
In the circumstances, it wasn’t surprising that they came out on top in the replay six days later when they weren’t flattered to finish 0-14 to 1-8 to the good against the Noreside kingpins.
So, Newtown are now just one game away from collecting the most prestigious prize in club hurling.
And the meteoric nature of their rise up the rankings is graphically illustrated by the fact that in the opposite corner on St Patrick’s Day will be the men from Dunloy, who contested a second consecutive All-Ireland club final in 1996 — the year that Newtown claimed county intermediate honours after a replay with Cloyne.
Dunloy advanced to the final for the third time in 2002.
But, as in ‘95 and ‘96 when they were well beaten by Birr, in a replay, and Sixmilebridge respectively, they suffered another crushing defeat last year, with Birr again dishing out the punishment on that occasion.
In view of their vast experience, Dunloy will have to be respected on Wednesday as they attempt to avail of what will surely be their last opportunity to win an All-Ireland.
But the general perception is that Newtown have encountered stiffer opposition en route to the decider. And in lowering the colours of an O’Loughlin Gaels side that had earlier eliminated Birr, on the trail of a third All-Ireland on the trot, in Leinster, Newtown can fancy their chances of coming up trumps against Dunloy. Providing their optimism is tempered with caution, the odds are that Newtown will take the spoils.
And they could well do so with some style if such key men as Ben O’Connor, in attack, Jerry O’Connor, at midfield, and Pat Mulcahy, at centre-back, perform to the peak of their considerable powers on the day.
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