A MAGICALhurling day for the West in Walsh Park last Sunday and most especially for the newly crowned intermediate and junior champions Dngarvan and Tourin/Glen Rovers respectively.
Two super games of hurling on a far from perfect playing surface, but the fans who turned up in decent numbers enjoyed as good a doubleheader bill of fare as the city venue has hosted in many a long day.
Victory, dramatic victory, for Dungarvan over Clonea in the intermediate final, but behind that 1-20 to 2-16 scoreline is a story of raw courage and unbending bravery by the Old Boro in snatching victory from what were the very jaws of defeat literally at the death. It truly was the stuff of fairytale, although I suspect the Clonea players, mentors, and supporters won’t have seen anything fairytale about losing a game they seemed destined to win for most of this thrilling hour.
They were worth every one of the four points they were ahead at half time, 0-13 to 1-6, and when they struck for their brace of goals within seven minutes of the redstart they were ten points clear and seem-ingly on an unstoppable role.
Now the most searching questions were being asked of this youthful Dungarvan outfit - -surely the youngest ever to win an adult county championship. In breathtaking fashion they came up with all of the right answers, and their thirteen points scored in the closing twenty minutes to just two by Clonea is a measure of the way they took this final by the scruff of the neck and literally choked the life out of a fast fading opposition.
Mind you Clonea did chip in with their two points at a crucial stage, and with little more than five minutes of normal time remaining their five point advantage looked good enough to carry the day.
But no. Dungarvan had the scent of possible victory in their nostrils and they pushed relentlessly on. The points continued to flow until Cormac’s effort from a free had the sides level on the hour. Still two minutes of added time to be played and time still for a winning score.
It was to a now rampant Dungarvan that it fell with Karl Duggan the hero and adding to the earlier brace of beauties he had also slotted between the posts. One last Clonea attack went narrowly wide and from the puck out it was all over.
What had looked the impossible with twenty minutes left had become exciting reality and the Old Boro blues were proudly returning to the topflight in 21010 after an absence of a decade and a half. Heartbreaking for Clonea for sure and it will be little enough consolation for them knowing that they contributed in equal measure to what was a marvelous final.
TOURIN/GLEN ROVER’S DAY TOO The preceding junior hurling final was no less exciting, no less a sporting spectacular, and it also provided the fans with the same kind of dramatic finish to the intermediate decider.
For unfortunate Kill goal-keeper Peter Torpey it is a nightmare he will have to live with, his monumental blunder gifting the westerners their winning goal just seconds from fulltime. Cruel irony for sure because it was the keeper’s one and only flip on a day when he was coolness personified in dealing with everything that had earlier come his way.
Another great final however, and like Dungarvan in the intermediate Tourin/Glen Rovers displayed unbelievable heart and courage in coming from behind to snatch the spoils at the death. Kilkenny man John O’Dwyer certainly did one magnificent job with them this season, and this great win is down as much to him as it is even to the heroic men in those striped red and white jerseys who did the business out on the field of play.
Just a point separating the sides at the half way point, 0-8 to 0-7, in Kill’s favour, and in a second moiety of rapidly fluctuating fortunes the westerners seemed to be motoring to the winning line when they eased two points clear on forty nine minutes.
But then came a great Kill goal in which substitutes Brian Mooney as provider and Jack Power as executioner were the central figures. That put their side back into the lead which they held until the magnificent Dara Fives rifled over a prodigious equaliser from a free deep inside his own half as the clock ticked into the 59th minute.
I suspect both sides would have settled for the draw at that stage, but then came that Daithi Wilkinson goal off his speculative delivery with three minutes oaf added time played.
No more seconds left, the final whistle blown on the puck out, and the agony and the ecstasy on view in all of its rawest emotion.
Sport. How utterly cruel and unkind it can be. If you don’t believe me just ask any of those Clonea and Kill players who were all through the wringer on this super day for hurling.
