Midleton and Cork Senior Hurler, Conor Lehane, in attendance at the launch of the AIB Camogie and Club Championship. This is AIB’s 28th year sponsoring the AIB GAA Football, Hurling and their 6th year sponsoring the Camogie Club Championships.
By John Harrington
Conor Lehane admits that Sunday’s AIB Munster Club SHC clash with Waterford champions Ballygunner presents a unique sort of mental challenge for him and his Midleton team-mates.
They were beaten in the Cork SHC Final by Imokilly, but will represent their county in the provincial championship because divisional teams like Imokilly are not allowed to.
All the Midleton players were heart-broken after losing the county final, but with a provincial campaign now to focus on they can’t afford to feel too sorry for themselves.
“Yeah, it's strange alright,” said Lehane. “The first few days after the County Final you wouldn't even be thinking about it. You'd be in no form to even talk about it.
“But as the week went on and we stopped going out and stuff we regrouped and kind of said, look, we're there anyway, that's the situation we're in and we're still representing Cork and it's great to be still hurling at this time of the year, we haven't done that in a long time.
“So it wasn't long before we started getting up for it again when we realised the position we were in and we decided not to take it for granted.
“We got back training and it was as if we never stopped after the Final. It was good to get back into that mentality.”
A dejected Conor Lehane pictured after Midleton were defeated by Sixmilebridge in the 2013 AIB Munster Club SHC.
This is Midleton’s first sojourn into Munster since they won the Cork Championship back in 2013, and Lehane believes they’re an older, wiser team now than they were back then.
“The last time we won and went on we had the attitude that we were delighted with the county and we'd just go out and see what would happen and we got beaten,” he said.
“A lot of us were still involved in the U-21 with Midleton at the time, we were in the County Final in that as well. In a way we were a lot younger then so we didn't take much notice.
“We were only 20, 21, so we were thinking we're surely going to get back here at some stage in the future.
“It's taken so long and as you get older you get more sense.”
Midleton will go into Sunday’s Quarter-Final as underdogs against a Ballygunner side stacked with Waterford county hurlers, but Lehane is confident they can rise to the challenge.
“Obviously they've won five in a row in Waterford and they're such a strong side,” he said. “Even outside of their county players they're a very strong side.
“They're itching for the Munster, I'd say. They've been involved in the Munster Championship the last four years in a row so they'll be gunning for it.
"That's none of our concern, that's their own thing.
“It's really just entirely up to ourselves, the attitude we're going to decide on. Luke (O'Farrell), our captain, was saying that we don't disrespect the year we had by saying, 'Ah, look, we're not even meant to be here so go off and play and just see what happens'.
“We're going over there to play the same way we've been playing all year for our club so that shouldn't change.
“We're still representing our club and the county so you're not going to go out there and give it a half-assed attempt.”
