DAMIEN CAHALANE HAS urged his St Finbarr’s teammates to seize their chance in the AIB Munster club SHC, something that Cork teams have been painfully unable to do over the years.
The Barr’s approach Sunday’s provincial semi-final clash with Ballyea in Ennis seeking to become just the second Cork side in the last 11 seasons to win a game in the competition.
Glen Rovers, for the record, picked up that solitary win back in 2016, beating Patrickswell, though it may not be a good omen that they lost their next game to Ballyea.
Experienced Cork hurler Cahalane, a dual player with St Finbarr’s and Castlehaven, said he is not so much interested in improving Cork’s strike rate in the competition as simply seizing a rare opportunity to reach a Munster final.
“We’re not looking into it that deeply, in terms of what it does for the county as a whole but definitely the message I’d be trying to get across is that you don’t know when this opportunity will come about again,” said Cahalane, who last month helped St Finbarr’s claim a first senior county title since 1993.
“We won the county this year which is a hard thing to do and you want to give this competition a good rattle now, to give it due respect and prepare for it as well as you can.
“I know we’re perceived probably as a young team. But I played in my first county semi-final at 16 years of age against Newtown’ and I thought, ‘Great, this is going to happen every year’. But it doesn’t and it’s the same for our lads coming through now, you don’t know when this opportunity is going to come about again so for sure we’re going to give it our all and if it’s good enough, or if it’s not, we’ll be safe in the knowledge knowing that at least we gave it a good lash anyway.”
Rewind back to July and the opening round of the Cork Premier SHC and provincial success was the furthest thing from Cahalane’s mind. St Finbarr’s started their Cork championship campaign against Charleville in Mallow and were held to a draw by a side that went on to contest a relegation play-off.
“We were without a few players that day in fairness, myself and Conor (Cahalane, brother and Cork colleague) didn’t play,” explained Damien. “We had both picked up injuries playing football the week beforehand and Sam Cunningham, who had been a strong option for us coming off the bench, missed that game as well. It ended up being a real battle and we were lucky to get out of it with a draw. Look, we got out of it in the end and ended up winning our final two group games to qualify.”
Cahalane, son of legendary Cork footballer Niall, turned 30 back in August and could have been forgiven for wondering at that stage if a county success with St Finbarr’s was ever going to materialise.
“Some years it didn’t happen and we ended up in relegation finals and fighting for our lives,” he said. “Other years, we maybe got to the quarters or semis, were maybe unfortunate with injuries and that. And you come up against Midleton or Imokilly or Glen who were really, really good teams that pipped us. But you’re always hopeful you can get to that level, you keep that belief that you can keep things together and get to that level.
“This year we had a good core of experienced players. Maybe one or two are in their first years, others in their second or third year and it all added to the belief that we could go on and take a scalp.”
St Finbarr’s are slight underdogs for Sunday’s semi-final tie at Cusack Park, partly because of that terrible record attached to Cork representatives and partly because of the recent strong form of back to back Clare champions Ballyea.
“They have Tony Kelly, an absolutely fantastic player, one of the best in the country, if not the best,” said Cahalane. “Obviously someone will have a (marking) job to do but we have to concentrate on ourselves and make sure we’re right as well.”
It will be five weeks on Sunday since St Finbarr’s beat Blackrock 2-14 to 1-7 in the county final though Cahalane isn’t overly concerned about that gap.
“I think maybe that worked out well in that you had probably 29 years of hurt, then you win the county and you have your little bit of celebration and then go back into football for a couple of weeks, lost the football, have a bit of time to digest that and process it and everything else and then get back to work,” he said. “We won’t know until after the Ballyea game but I think looking at the schedule, it was fair to us and fair to the situation that the club found itself in.”
