Chris Nolan living the dream with Carlow

​By Paul Keane

Chris Nolan remembers it as one of those 'you had me at hello' moments.

It was late last November, the Carlow forward's first meeting with new manager Pat Bennett, and the vibes were immediately good.

"I remember that very first night we met in Fenagh," said Nolan, recalling the meeting at their training centre. "From then on, he had you bought in. He was brilliant right from then. I remember meeting him the very first time and I was thinking, 'Jesus, I'd run through a wall for this lad', and I didn't even know who he was. I'd only just met him. That's just Pat. He's brilliant."

After a couple of decades by Davy Fitzgerald's side in Waterford, Wexford and, most recently, Antrim backroom teams, this is Bennett's first time wearing the bainisteoir bib at senior inter-county level.

And considering his late appointment at the back end of 2025 - he didn't get to watch any of the Carlow club championship - the fact that Carlow were facing into a devilishly difficult Division 1B League campaign, and one too many injuries, the job could have been too much for him.

But by leading Carlow to this afternoon's Joe McDonagh Cup final against Laois, the Ballysaggart man has been as good as his word, delivering on a promise he made that very first evening in Fenagh.

"He was selling us a dream back then in November, and he was right," smiled Carlow captain Nolan. "It got tough there in the League at times but we never questioned him. He stuck to the process, and I don't think he ever questioned us either, when he could have during the League.

"It was all about the Championship with him. He was always referencing 'the Joe Mac', especially when things were going bad in the League, he'd always reference that, 'We'll be right for the Joe Mac, we'll be right for the first round of the Joe Mac'."

Nolan said that when Carlow defeated Laois in their opening round-robin game in April, 'any doubt at all was out the window' among the players.

The thing about Bennett is, he doesn't need to be doing this at all, placing himself at the coalface of a brand new challenge and imploring young men to dig deep and to mine out their very best form. It's only a few weeks ago that Bennett revealed for the first time publicly how he'd battled prostate cancer in recent years. He spoke in that interview also about how much of a toll the long haul job alongside Fitzgerald in Antrim had taken on him.

He said that a few weeks after the 2025 season was over, he collapsed at home.

"It was just everything came at me," explained Bennett. "I collapsed one day."

That's a year ago now and when the Carlow job came up a few months later, he naturally sought the counsel of his family. The father of Waterford senior hurlers Stephen, Shane and Kieran concluded that it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

"It's all about bucket lists now," he reasoned. "I said, 'Look, I'll have a go at it'."

No doubt Bennett has enjoyed this season's journey to Croke Park - Carlow qualified for the decider after just four games, having scored 16 goals in the process - but finishing the job and claiming one of the most significant pieces of silverware in championship hurling would allow him to place a giant tick next to the box on that bucket list.

"That was the dream he was selling us from November, yeah," smiled Nolan, one of the Carlow players with the potential to make the dream a reality. "We didn't doubt Pat either. I know we struggled in the League but we had an awful lot of injuries, which we probably hadn't got over the previous few years. And they all just came at once. That's just part and parcel of it too."

There was no shame in finding Division 1B hurling a step up. Two of the teams that Carlow faced, Dublin and Clare, are still going strong in the MacCarthy Cup race.

Bennett's light touch and ability to extract a smile, or to crack a joke at just the right time, has been key to keeping Carlow tuned in and focused.

"He could have (retired), easily," said Nolan. "But he just loves the game, he absolutely loves it. He's the first up in the field, any night we're training. He's brilliant, he's so enthusiastic still about the game, at his age and after everything he's been through.

"He's like a kid out on the field when you're going training. He's always pucking around balls, he's always messing. He loves a laugh and a joke before it obviously gets serious. To see how much he loves the game, it rubs off on players.

"You realise how lucky we are that we're still playing, when you see a lad like Pat. He's brought a new dynamic and everything to it this year."

Carlow have captured the title twice before, when the competition was played first, in 2018, and again in 2023. Nolan scored 1-4 in the inaugural final, against Westmeath, and posted 0-4 in the 2023 win over Offaly.

"My first year was 2017, we actually won the Christy Ring final that year, against Antrim," recalled Nolan, who scored a point as a substitute.

Now in his 10th season, he carries the weight of responsibility entrusted on him by manager Bennett as team captain.

This could be the sweetest of the lot, he says, if they can make off with the silverware again. You ask him, why so?

"Because we got relegated in the League, we shipped a few heavy beatings, and we were written off by everyone, by a lot of our own as well," said Nolan. "It was hard. But the management team, the players, we all just stuck together. We didn't listen to any of the outside noise. As captain as well, it would definitely be the sweetest one yet."