“It’s always nice to mark the top players” - Prunty
Abbeyside management team of Pa Kearney, James O'Mahony and Mark Ferncombe have stepped up to the plate to lead their club to a first county final appearance since 2018 after Benji Whelan's recent health scare. Photo: Maurice Hennebry.
Abbeyside defender Conor Prunty enjoyed his tussle with Austin Gleeson last Sunday. The 2021 All Star full back realised pretty quickly that he would be man marking the 2016 Hurler of the Year.
“The minute the draw was made last week! Sure, I knew. Inevitably, that’s my job. I just prepared for the week. It’s nice to mark the top players. It’s a challenge and you really get to test yourself.” Captain Michael Kiely watched on from afar as the inter county team mates went head to head. “Two Goliaths going at it! Conor is a big, physical man; you can’t really get away from him. He always has a hurley or a hand near you. He’s phenomenal player for us but he is also some leader inside in the dressing room. When he speaks, everyone listens to him.” For club and county, stalking marquee forwards is Prunty’s calling card. Jamie Barron and Patrick Curran were on his hit list earlier in the championship. Not alone did Prunty keep Aussie scoreless from play, he wandered up the field to shoot a point from a near impossible angle. The number three was on the thirteen metre line at the dressing room corner when he took aim at the posts. “That was a bit of a fluke! I can’t say I prepared for that! Look, that summed up our day; everything went right. We’re not getting ahead of ourselves. A lot of stuff went right for us and it probably didn’t for Mount Sion.”
He was glad to have powerhouse midfielder Willie Beresford as a shield. The man with the luminous boots gave a tour de force. “Austin was getting frustrated watching Willie, he was on a lot of ball. They couldn’t really get a hold of him. It’s really satisfying when there’s a fella like that in front of you that’s just dominating the game. He really delivered today. It’s been coming. He has been one of our best players on the underage teams. Delighted for him and hopefully, he can bring that form into next week.” Benji Whelan took over the Villagers at the start of the season alongside Pa Kearney, Mark Ferncombe and James O’Mahony. A recent health scare saw Whelan miss the last two games. “They’ve been excellent. They’ve really organised things. The lads had a good base of training done by the time we came back from Waterford. We weren’t trying to pick up things, it was already there. There was a good level, good fitness. Benji is being realistic with fellas as well. He has given us breaks. He hasn’t pushed us, he has tried to get us all on the field which we’ve struggled with the last few years. Pa and Furry have brought a lot of really good hurling knowledge and Jimmo has stepped up in the last two weeks. It’s really enjoyable to come to training every Tuesday night. That was the message the last two weeks: we wanted to come back training the following week. It’s really enjoyable this year so far.”
Who will Prunty pick up in the decider? Dessie Hutchinson? Kevin Mahony? Pauric Mahony? The 27 year old started the 2018 final defeat to Ballygunner at Fraher Field. The Villagers went down by twelve points that afternoon. He wants to make amends on Sunday. “Look, that was a really disappointing day. Similar to this year, we played really well coming through all the games, beat De La Salle in the semi final. This year, we want to get a performance and see where that takes us. That will be the key focus for the week: that we just don’t leave it behind us and get a performance.”
Michael O’Halloran 0-41
Michael Kiely 4-12
Charlie Treen 3-10
Eoin Kiely 1-2
Rian Walsh 0-6
Willie Beresford 0-4
Billy O’Connell 0-3
Conor Prunty 0-3
Maurice Power 0-2
Evan McInerney 0-1
