JOURNEYS TO CROKE Park can take different forms.

If there is a traditional route to All-Ireland club final day, then Cian Darcy went down a different path.

He was not the hurler tutored from a young age in Riverstown in Cork, rather the latecomer to the sport.

It’s only a decade since a hurley was pressed into his hand competitively for the first time, yet the 26-year-old has blossomed into a rampaging, energetic presence around the middle third, a key factor in enabling Sarsfields be one of the last two senior hurling sides standing in the country this season.

He charts the steps he has taken up the hurling ladder.

“I only started playing hurling when I was 16, played U16B first. I didn’t make the minor panel the first year, then I would have been the minor B captain my second year minor with Sars. Then the year after that, I played Junior B with Sars. Gearoid Duggan, who (has) passed away, the Duggans are a great Sars family. I text him saying – ‘Would you give us a chance at wing-back with the Junior Bs?’

“I grew in stature then. I was doing my Leaving Cert at the time, I was 18. That year too, I played U21B and scored 2-6 in the U21B county final. The following week, we had so much injuries for the U21 Premier 1 county quarter-final against Blackrock, I got my chance that day and that was probably won of my best ever games with Sars.

“I haven’t looked back since. I made the senior panel the year after. I made my senior debut coming on against Carrigtwohill in 2018, so that was four years after I joined. I started to cement my place from 2020 onwards.”

The iconic name that put the Sarsfields club on the map was chiefly responsible for pushing a teenage Darcy towards hurling.

“Teddy Mac was a great family friend of my dad (Tommy). He would have been my dad’s best man, they kinda grew up together, only up the road there. He would have been up in my house two, three nights a week. He just said – ‘Would you ever give hurling a try?’

“I would have been involved with Sars in that I would have went to the matches, but I would never have thought about playing. Teddy gave me his son’s red Mycro and he got me a hurley too. The helmet was Niall’s. I went away up and gave it a go at 16 and haven’t looked back since.”

His hurling exposure as a youngster amounted to pucking around on holidays near the family’s mobile home in Youghal, while also attending underage county finals that Sarsfields were playing in featuring his contemporaries Jack O’Connor, Liam Healy, and Cillian Roche.

Another sport had a hold of him; soccer consumed his interest.

“I was a soccer fanatic. I was a good player up to 14 when I was with Rockmount and then I would have went down to Springfield in Cobh. I would have played with the Cork schoolboys alright (and) played up front with Caoimhin Kelleher for Rockmount. I was small as a young fella and then I shot up, and I think I nearly lost the co-ordination in my legs for the soccer. I went poor. Lost interest.”

He’s grateful for influences in the club, who helped shape his hurling development.

“When I joined with Sars at 16, Tadhg Óg (Murphy) and Ray Ryan would have had big influences on me. Still to this day, I’d nearly be onto them every day. Tadhg Óg gave me grinds in accounting. I grew so close to him and Ray Ryan, and I kinda felt just addicted to Sars, all I wanted to be was a senior hurler for Sars. They guided me. They still are.

“I knew I had the athleticism and agility to play with Sars. My hurling would still have been poor, but as I improved on the hurling, I always had the athleticism.

“I always say to Cathal, Cormac, and Rory Duggan, without the likes of Gearoid, I don’t know how it would have gone. Barry Myers gave me a chance at U21. Stephen (Looney) would have pushed for me to start that U21 quarter-final, he was selected that time. Ray, Johnny, Brian Roche, all these guys gave me my chance.

“Ultimately, I will always remember that text to Gearoid Duggan to give me that chance. He saw the potential in me. It was Junior B at the end of the day. Forever grateful to him, it toughened me up certainly.”

The club are preparing for the biggest game in their history and closing in on their greatest achievement.

The current group have carved out slices of history in this campaign, yet there is a element of poignancy to the fact that a totemic figure like Teddy McCarthy, who passed away in June 2023, will be absent on Sunday.

Darcy has warm memories of such an influential presence in his life.

“Teddy was up in our place three or four nights a week. Many of my evenings were spent with Teddy in the front room. I remember when we played the U21 county final, Teddy called up to the house that morning to talk to me. I would have been everywhere with Teddy.

“My Mam always said to me that when I’d get home in the evenings from school, I’d have things planned, but when I’d see Teddy’s car downstairs, I’d go straight downstairs, flick the kettle, and just listen to him because he was so box office. My Dad, Granddad, myself, and Teddy would have lived in that room talking about everything.

“I don’t think anyone would have thought at 16 when I went up to Buck Leary’s Cross (Sarsfields pitches) that I would have had the career I am having with Sars. I still pinch myself. I told Ray Ryan last year I was living the dream.”

Cian Darcy (right) celebrates Sarsfields success in the 2023 Cork senior hurling final. Tom Maher / INPHO Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO

*****

Eoin Quigley first joined Sarsfields in 2011. Life and work had brought him to Cork a couple years before that, but hurling was still a magnetic pull towards home in Wexford.

He maintained his presence as an established county hurler until 2013, making the long treks to the south-east.

When retirement called there, he funnelled his energies towards Sarsfields in establishing hurling roots. He joined at the same time as Éanna Martin to provide a joint flavour to a club in a dominant phase.

A couple of county senior medals were collected in 2012 and 2014, a pair of unsuccessful Munster campaigns to spark regrets followed, but even when his playing days ended in 2018, Quigley has remained immersed in the club.

Eoin Quigley in action for Sarsfields in the 2012 Cork final. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

“I stopped playing in 2018 and I coached the team in 2019 and 2020, when Brian Roche was the manager. I stepped away then from that and actually coached the intermediate team for a year, Castlemartyr beat us in the county final that year.

“I then went up and actually coached Brian Dillons for a year, then I’m after getting involved in the last two years with John and Diarmuid O’Sullivan here (as a selector).

“It’s been a long number of years involved but sure it’s thoroughly enjoyable.”

He found the club welcoming to newcomers from the start. Quigley looks now at Sarsfields wing-back Bryan Murphy, a former Kerry hurler who had moved to Cork, as an example of the benefits in cutting down time on the road.

“It’s maybe a more common theme now, you do see clubs embracing players from outside the county who’ve moved.

“Brian Murphy is again an example of that. He’s a Guard here in Cork, married locally, and he’s fitted in really well. I think the lads are, are very, open to that.

“We’re not the only club who does it. Brian Ryan (from Limerick) with Na Fianna, I think he’s even going into Dublin panel this year. He’s a fabulous midfielder.

“As long as the club has an open mindset about embracing players who can help the club, improve the club and help the culture in the club, I think that’s the main thing.

“The road is improved from Cork to Wexford now, but like I was with Wexford travelling up and down that road for four years for Wexford. I would have been home at half 10, 11 o’clock at night and your body is already sore from training and when you’re sitting in the car then straight away for another three hour, it does affect you. It would be the same for the likes of Brian if he was up and down to Kerry now.

“It makes a big difference because your recovery is better. You’re getting a bite to eat afterwards straight away, proper food, instead of stopping at your garage and grabbing whatever is available. So it’s hugely beneficial, definitely on the body.”

He has never spent a Christmas where hurling colonised his thinking as much. Sarsfields beat Slaughtneil on 15 December in Newbridge, and after they enjoyed that win for a day or two, they’ve spent the last five weeks plotting for Croke Park and Na Fianna.

Quigley’s native club St Martin’s took on the Dublin champions in the Leinster semi-final, providing a source of information to tap into.

“I have a good friend, their manager Daithi Hayes. Obviously I picked up the phone to Daithi and had a chat to him, (and) a few players just to find out a little bit more about them and what they experienced and the challenges that they kind of encountered against them, but at the same time, the opportunities that they saw as well.”

In his own kids, ten-year-old Jacob and seven-year-old Kayden, he can see the excitement that a novel club championship run generates and what reaching the destination of Croke Park can do for a community in the dull days of January.

“I’m a kind of a coach with the U10s as well, and there’s a group there of nearly 50 players in it and they’re so enthusiastic about hurling now.

“(They) have seen the senior team propel themselves onto an All-Ireland final, winning a Munster championship, winning the county championship last year.

“It means that those young kids are going to continue to play hurling next year. We won’t, I think, have any drop offs next year in hurling because there’s such an interest in Sars at the moment.

“I’m good friends with Brian Hogan from Kilkenny. He was with O’Loughlins up in the All-Ireland final and watching guys like that who who are up there and (you’re) thinking – ‘God, wouldn’t it be amazing to get an experience up in Croke Park again.’

“So it’s huge for the club. Personally, it’s amazing to have my family going up there.
There’s a supporters train going up. It’s going to be lots of fun. To be involved with the team here, bringing these lads up to Croke Park, yeah, it’s extra special.”

He’ll hope to draw on his own playing experiences of the venue, days with Wexford in Leinster action leaving him well-versed in adjusting to the stadium.

Eoin Quigley in action in the 2007 Leinster hurling final. Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO

“I was actually only talking to Diarmuid O’Sullivan about it the other day and we were just saying how often were we up in Croke Park?

“I was thinking, I played up there about 15 times. We used to play a lot of quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals (in Leinster) up there and then with Wexford we played quite a number of (All-Ireland) quarter-finals up there as well, and two (All-Ireland) semi-finals, one against Cork and one against Kilkenny.

“The last time I probably played up there would have been back around 2010, maybe something like that, so it’s a number of years ago.

“It’s a massive pitch, plays differently than every other pitch I’ve played in that especially point-taking, you need to really plant your feet to take your scores, over the shoulder scores don’t often work out up there.

“You can get lost in the occasion very easily, so it’s part of our (job as) management that we have to settle the players down and make sure that they perform on the day and that the first 15 minutes they’re not jittery and making mistakes, that be calm and believe in themselves.”

Any plans to encourage Sarsfields players to try replicate his wonder point from the 2005 Leinster championship against Kilkenny?

“I’m always trying to do a bit of ground hurling in training, but I don’t often get my way,” laughs Quigley.

“I think that that day is gone. But yeah we might set up an old drill of doubling the ball over the shoulder to see how they get on.”