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Eoin Cody and James Burke will face off this weekend, not for the first time. Inpho

For Naas, the road to Croker had to go through Kilkenny

The Kildare side beat a talented Ballyhale Shamrocks team as U16s, but they know they face an altogether more daunting prospect on Sunday.

HAVE YOU HEARD the story of the Naas hurling team that beat Ballyhale Shamrocks in a Kilkenny hurling final?

It’s one that goes some way to explaining how seven years later, these two, All-Ireland senior hurling royalty and rookies, can meet in a Leinster semi-final at Croke Park.

It wasn’t just any old Ballyhale crop of players either, if such a thing exists, but one that contained two future Young Hurlers of the Year in Eoin Cody and Adrian Mullen, albeit the latter, despite being named at No 11, missed that particular final. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference that October day in 2015. It finished 6-12 to 0-6 and Naas backed it up by beating Ballyhale again in the Kilkenny minor league two years later.

Naas have five players from that famous day expected to field on Sunday: James Burke, Rian Boran, Harry Carroll, Kevin Aherne, and Rian Monaghan. Ballyhale have eight: Cody, Mullen, Dean Mason, Evan Shefflin, Darragh Corcoran, Eoin Kenneally, and Stephen and Liam Barron off the bench.

The U16 reminiscing to follow will have no bearing on Sunday. This Ballyhale team doesn’t carry psychological baggage from underage defeats. They are unbackable, unimpeachable, 1/50 odds-on favourites to progress. But that day did help to inspire a generation of Naas hurlers that they could strive for more. That there was a pathway there with which to persevere. That there was no ceiling to their progress, much less their aspirations. Why not have a Kildare team competing at the highest level of club hurling?

“Hopefully that day created memories for them so when they’re thinking about whether they stay at it or don’t stay at it, or whether they get up out of bed on a Sunday morning or they don’t, that’s had a positive impact,” says Máirtín Boran, part of the Naas management team that day.

James Burke, Kildare hurling star and Naas dual player, takes that hope and brings it to life every time he and his teammates enter the field.

“A lot of our lads picked hurling which was the first crop to do that,” says Burke. “In Naas, there are only one or two lads playing from two years above us, the 1997 age group, and the 1996 age group as well. There are a good few more playing from the 1999 age group and the years above and below. That made a big difference, playing in Kilkenny and seeing a pathway that there could be success for Naas down the line.”

It began, as many good ideas do, with a problem.

The final of the U15 Kildare Hurling League wasn’t played in 2014. Why? Well, Naas were too good for their opponents. How much better? When it came to a final, the two teams left standing were Naas 1 and Naas 2. No ‘split Dublin in two’ movement could solve this dilemma.

They had looked outside the county before. They had a history of travelling for challenge games: Cork, Galway, Kilkenny, Tipperary, anywhere that would play ball against them. They played in the U12 Dublin Hurling League in 2011. When that wasn’t allowed anymore, they looked further afield. Kilkenny GAA were only too happy to spread the gospel.

Naas jumped in at the deep end. No slowly navigating their way up the divisions. Kilkenny U16 Division 1 Hurling League; all games away from home. They beat James Stephens, Dicksboro, Erin’s Own, and Bennettsbridge on their own patches. The only team that had their measure were county champions O’Loughlin Gaels. Their league position was good enough for a spot in the Division 1 Hurling Shield final. A trip to Ballyhale awaited.

But Ballyhale got in touch. They wanted to concede home advantage, to take their crew on a road trip of their own, to give Naas due reward for all those miles driven by parents up and down to hurling heartlands. This time Kilkenny would come to them.

The day had something of a festival feel. The best autumnal weather any Child of Prague statue could ever solicit, a crowd to cheer them on, Kilkenny chairman Willie Dempsey on hand to present the cup, and a function in the clubhouse with families and players from both sides mingling together. The club would later organise a small trophy engraved with each of the players’ names to be presented, immortalising the day a Kildare team won a Kilkenny hurling title.

“The crowd we got for an U16 hurling game in Naas was massive,” says Burke, captain that day. “That was by far and away the biggest crowd I’d ever played in front of. You knew it had the feel of a big occasion. I remember I was absolutely buzzing and the whole team was with the result on the day.”

“A joy to watch for any hurling fan,” eulogised the match report carried across the local papers. Burke was credited with “summoning his inner Austin Gleeson” for one solo-and-strike-off-the-hurl point. That was somehow exceeded by Ciarán Tobin who produced “an outrageous point from distance that was easily the score of the game”. The “defiant and resolute goalkeeping of Dean Mason” was recognised for keeping the gap to 24 points.

It ended with a modest prediction: “On the evidence of this game, where every Naas player put aside any individual ambition and hurled as a complete team, the future is indeed very bright.”

Boran, a selector on the Kildare U20 team that beat Wexford last year, goes through a staccato checklist in his performance review all these years later: “Great teamwork. Spread the ball around. Kept it wide. Hit the ball to the Naas man each time. Got the scores.”

Ballyhale were gracious to the last. The exact words are lost amid the din and excitement of the day but Boran recalls Henry Shefflin’s father, Henry Senior, giving a speech to the Naas team. He encouraged them to stick with the hurling, to enjoy it and commit to it, and, of course, to listen to their coaches. He explained how the game had been so good to him and his family. And he welcomed Naas to call down to Ballyhale any time.

That hospitality was mutual, between Naas and Ballyhale, between Naas and the Kilkenny County Board, and between Naas and all Kilkenny clubs.

“I remember them days going back,” says Boran, “you’d play your game and you’d go in and get a sandwich and a cup of tea and a chat after. Whatever club you were in, that was the welcome you were getting. It was special that way.”

Burke thinks it was Joey Holden who addressed them in the clubhouse later, passing on his compliments for their brand of hurling, for making the request to Kilkenny and pushing the boundaries to improve. He advised them to keep testing themselves.

They have done just that. They have held their standard at county level with four senior titles in a row. They tested themselves at provincial intermediate level last year, winning Leinster and All-Ireland titles and beating more Kilkenny opposition in Glenmore on the road to Croker. Ten of their crew returned to GAA HQ with Kildare last May for the Christy Ring Cup final. Next year they will test their capacity to survive at Joe McDonagh level.

Naas’s first senior test came against Offaly champions Shinrone. They passed with flying colours. 4-21 to 0-18. Welcome to Leinster senior hurling. But Sunday will be their biggest test of all.

“It’s the dream,” says Boran, whose sons Rian, Conan, and Cian are on the Naas panel. “We all had the idea and the picture of it but whether it’d actually happen or not, you’re always asking the question ‘why not?’. If you compete at underage, why not senior?

“It’s great for them to get one step on that ladder. I’m not saying they’ll get to a senior club championship final at Croke Park but if you don’t have that target it’ll never happen and I think the guys actually believe they will get there. Along the way they know they have to improve and get better but that’s their goal with a lot of these players.

“For guys to stretch themselves to move on to the next level they need to be playing the likes of Ballyhale and Ballygunner and hopefully they will encourage more within the county to focus on hurling as well.

“It’s great to see, especially after the years we’ve had with Covid, teams coming through, guys maturing and doing it on their own. It’s exciting times but the same as any other club, it only lasts so long. We have to make sure we keep focusing on the next nursery and the juveniles coming through and keep the hurling to the forefront to encourage them to play.”

For Burke, there will be no time to reflect on the boyhood memories of 2015 in the senior cauldron of 2022.

“I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily in your mind. A lot has changed. I can only imagine how competitive the Kilkenny senior club championship is,” he says. “That really turns boys into men, I’d imagine.

“When it’s a Leinster senior semi-final and it’s in Croke Park against potentially the best club team ever, you’re absolutely buzzing for it and really looking forward to it.”

Once more they will ask themselves that question: Why not?

Leinster club SHC semi-final: Naas (Kildare) v Ballyhale Shamrocks (Kilkenny), Croke Park, 1.15pm

Author
Stephen Barry
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