WITH two county finals in a fortnight, excitement has reached fever pitch around the parish of Newcestown. ‘There’s fierce excitement around the place alright,’ says club chairman Gerard O’Donovan. ‘It’s a phenomenal achievement, and the thing is it’s not just the GAA community that is enjoying this, it’s the community as a whole. You’d see a lot of flags and banners throughout the parish, and that’s brilliant for the lads.’
With Newcestown’s place already secured in the Senior A Hurling final, they had to await a replay of Blarney and Bride Rovers to see who would join them in the decider. Gerard spoke of how it didn’t matter who they faced: ‘We didn’t take a whole pile of notice of it because we are solely concentrating on ourselves. Be it Blarney or Bride Rovers, it didn’t really matter as there are certainly no bad teams left in the competition. What we were worried about was the final being pushed back another week. We want to play on at this stage and keep the momentum going.’
The team behind the successful Newcestown teams, front, from left, Brian Moloney, selector; Niall McIntyre, fittness coach, and Charlie Wilson, hurling team manager. Back, from left, Andrew Walsh, treasurer; Gerard O'Donovan, chairman; Sean Twomey, selector; Niall O'Sullivan, selector, and Darren Heffernan, selector.
How have Newcestown managed to juggle both codes at an elite level? ‘It’s been quite simple, a week of football followed by a week of hurling, every second week throughout the year from the start of the league. The lads have been going in the championship now for about 12 weeks. I was speaking with lads from other clubs during the year, and they said at times we’d have looked dead to start, but the fitness from both really told towards the end of a lot of games. That can be put down to playing tough games week on week.’
Having to play both hurling and football brings about its challenges, and avoiding injuries is key, as O’Donovan explains: ‘I do feel that playing every week in these high-intensity championship games is very beneficial to the players' fitness wise as long as you don’t pick up any injuries and you need a bit of luck there. For us, we’re depending a lot on the same bunch of players throughout the season with many of the team playing both codes. So yeah, avoiding injuries is a big aspect of trying to succeed in both codes. If you can keep them away, you have a great chance. We’ve had one or two during the year, but the lads on the team have just got on with it.’
As the games add up, recovery becomes more and more important for Newcestown. The club has left it to the players to take ownership of their recovery: ‘A lot of them go to the beach that evening or the following day. They’d also use ice baths and saunas. They just do what they need they feel to do. They have the full backing of the club with anything they do or specifically want, so we let it to them what’s best in terms of recovery.’
Management have also had to adapt, with so little time to prepare for championship games. ‘Both management teams have worked very well with each other this year. Don’t get me wrong: they’d have their arguments between them from time to time, but in the end, they can see what’s best for the club. Tim Buckley (football manager) even said after one of our football games “We haven’t even got time to argue at the moment”. But in fairness to them, the communication has been great all the way through, so we can’t complain.’
If things go Newcestown’s way on Sunday, they have to delay celebrations considering they’ll need to think about a county football final soon after. ‘I would say they would definitely be back on the pitch on Tuesday whether they’re still recovering from a few pints on the Sunday or indeed maybe even the Monday, but that’ll be easily fixed if we’ve to worry about that!’ says O’Donovan. ‘I wouldn’t be putting the cart before the horse; we’d like to have the cup in our hands first, so we’ll do our best to win on Sunday, but it would be a great problem to have.’
