ST Oliver Plunkett’s junior hurlers and footballers haven’t lost a league or championship game in 2023. Let that sink in: not one defeat in 18 games.
It’s the perfect ten for the club’s footballers. Five wins to top Division 3A of the Carbery/Beara Football League. Five wins to be crowned champions of the Bon Secours Confined Junior B Football Championship, the most important last Saturday when Plunkett’s beat Ballyphehane in the final by a point.
The hurlers’ form is equally impressive. Four victories and one draw as they won the Carbery Division 2 Hurling League title, and three more wins en route to this Saturday’s Co-op Superstores Confined Junior B Hurling Championship decider against Ballyclough at Páirc Uí Rinn (3.30pm throw-in).
Plunkett’s are now closing in on a unique county junior double, and it’s the turn of the hurlers to take centre stage this weekend.
‘There is serious momentum there,’ says hurling selector Donal Walsh.
‘In hurling or football we haven't lost a game this season. These lads have that winning mentality. Look at both county semi-finals, both were won by one point. Look at last Saturday, the footballers won by a point. They have shown huge character to get to where they are.’
Iveleary's Shane Galvin closes in on St Oliver Plunkett's Brian Walsh during the Bon Secours Confined JBHC semi-final at Dunmanway.
The seeds for Plunkett’s success were sown last year when both groups put plans in place designed to give them the best chance of success after a disappointing few years.
‘We changed things around with the hurlers for this year because what we had been doing with a player/manager just wasn’t working,’ says Walsh, who was Plunkett's player/manager before when they won the West Cork JAHC in 2011.
‘We hadn't won a hurling match in almost two years, league or championship, were relegated to junior B in football and hurling, so we knew we needed to do something and get proper structures in place.’
Conor McCarthy (hurling) and Brian Walsh (football) took on the role of player logistic managers in each set-up. They do everything from organising training matches to the administration side of things, but on the week and day of games they are players only. In the hurling set-up, Donal Walsh, Barry O’Driscoll and Martin McCarthy are three selectors, and Mark Prendergast is the hurling coach.
‘I felt myself having been a player/manager that there is a lot of pressure, so we took that from them. The players have enough to be doing without the pressure of having to pick teams, think about subs and all that,’ he explains.
Then Plunkett’s addressed their injury problems.
‘We have a panel of 28/29 players and 16 of them were coming with injuries. We set out that we were going to get those injuries cleared up for the start of the season,’ Walsh says, and that relatively clean bill of health this season has helped. They also worked on fitness levels, knowing that between hurling and football they could be playing every week in the county championships. Twelve of the footballers’ starting team against Ballyphehane also started in the hurlers’ semi-final win against Iveleary, so there’s a huge crossover between both camps. Managing that is key, too.
‘We have put a huge emphasis on recovery. Ater a match on a Saturday, the Sunday is about recovery,’ Walsh explains. Last Sunday, the day after their county football final triumph, the players had a recovery session at Ahamilla with physio Sean Ryan. The focus switched to the hurling showdown with Ballyclough, but there’s momentum too to use from the football success.
‘It’s great the lads got used to Páirc Uí Rinn, they know the dressing-rooms now, what the occasion of a county final is like, what it’s like to run out, what the pitch is like, and that should stand to them for this Saturday,’ Walsh says.
Plunkett’s hurlers have beaten O’Donovan Rossa, Gleann na Laoi and Iveleary to get there, while Ballyclough has also had narrow wins over Rossas and Iveleary, suggesting there won’t be much between the two this weekend. The Ahiohill side’s momentum, and winning feeling, could prove to be the difference.
