Looking forward to Sunday’s Clean Ireland Recycling Tipperary county senior hurling final in Semple Stadium Brian Hudner, a loyal supporter of Nenagh Éire Óg, recalls the 1995 win over Boherlahan-Dualla.
Back row from left: Con Howard, John Heffernan, Paul Kennedy, Noel Coffey, Christy McLoughlin, Eddie Tucker, Frank Moran and Denis Finnerty. Front row from left: Chris Bonnar, Michael Cleary, Darragh Quinn, Conor O’Donovan, Robbie Tomlinson, Kevin Tucker and John Kennedy.
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I was living 6,000 miles from home when Nenagh Éire Óg won their solitary senior hurling title a generation ago.
It was morning my time when I heard the news of victory down a long-distance phone line. The connection was poor; our voices echoed more than the Ailwee Cave and we spent most of the time talking across each other like Brolly and Spillane. Nonetheless, I got the jist of it in the end.
It had been a ‘bóthar fada’ to get over ‘Bóthar Leathan’, but in 1995 Conor O’Donovan raised Dan Breen and dedicated it to all those who ever wore the blue.
The mammy sent out the Guardian a week later and I inhaled it with the ink-stained fingers of the exile.
What I didn’t know then was that it was also Monday morning his time when my father walked home from John Ryan’s in Summerhill, a half-gallon of porter his only source of sustenance. To this day, he claims it is the fastest time he has ever taken to cover the couple of miles home.
If I’m being honest I’ve always been dubious about his time-tracking on that night. After all, he left the pub as full as a Biro – no, as full as Mikey Heffernan’s medal drawer – and fairly skated home, songs still ringing in his ears. Whether or which, it was a night of nights in Nenagh town, and I missed it.
I need hardly add that Nenagh have threatened Dan Breen twice since then and run into a certain neighbouring parish on both occasions. This year, happy to report, the townies have no, ahem, Toomstone around their necks to pull them towards perdition.
Now, as in 1995, we are set up for a tilt at a Mid side, though not one of the Mid sides more favoured at the outset of the season. Indeed, the resurgence of the Mid division – and a countervailing fall in the North – has been much heralded in the last few years. We need no reminders that since Éire Óg won, no other North side apart from Toomevara has won the county championship (and their incredible haul of eight over eleven years is a spur to action on Sunday like no other).
One measure of the gap to the last win lies of course in the fact that the current team features sons of those who played in the last victory or featured in the final earlier in the ‘90s.
Noel Coffey lined out at corner-back in 1995 and his son Andrew wore 23 against Kildangan in the semi-final replay. Billy of the Heffernan clan is a backman like his dad (though John had a sojourn on the edge of the other square in 1995 of course). No surprise to see Howards, Quinns and Flannerys following fathers and brothers either. And there are other connections in the latticework: the entire side is spliced with familiar surnames, some in their third generation of service.
One such name of note is that of Kevin Tucker who will man his station in the centre of the Tom Semple’s field on Sunday. It is hard to believe it is 20 years since he won the North Tipperary Player of the Year award or that is so long since he gave a certain famous bainisteoir the runaround in the Munster Final of 1997. He is, so to speak, the son of his earlier self! He was by common accord one of the best men on the park against Kildangan the last day and will be key to unlocking Loughmore, a club chasing their third county title.
Loughmore-Castleiney have of necessity also made a virtue of family tradition. And while they might have a smaller pick, what a pick it is! The cousins McGrath match our Heffernans, and will take the same watching. Each of them is a game-changer in his own way, but the men running the Nayna ‘line have given every indication so far that they have a shield for every arrow and a couple of spares in their own quiver.
While this Nenagh team is short of county medals – Kevin Tucker aside – it is dotted with lads who have won All-Ireland titles with Tipperary at senior and underage and who have county titles all through the juvenile and under-21 grades. Added to a scattering of lads who won a recent All-Ireland colleges title with Nenagh CBS as well, it gives Nenagh a great chance on Sunday.
As something of a postscript to this piece there are many of us who wore the blue (without any distinction in my case) that will be there on Sunday. It is gratifying to see Nenagh in a final again after a seven-year gap.
I grew up a Brendan Cummins puck-out away from ‘the hurling field’ and made up the numbers as a young fella. Many’s the evening that Dinny McSweeny or Seán Foley came to round up a few of us to head off to Dolla or Cloughjordan, though it has to be said that some of us were, as the fella says, no addition. But no matter. We still cast a shadow on a hurling pitch sometime.
Anyhow, if Nenagh win, myself and the oul’ fella will doubtless be looking at our watch faces sometime on Monday morning as we point the shoe leather for home.
This time, there will be no long distance.
And no records either.
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