St. Kieran's College prepare for 8th Croke Cup Final in a row

By John Harrington

By any metric, the record that St. Kieran’s College, Kilkenny have in the Croke Cup is formidable.

They’ve won the Post Primary Schools Senior ‘A’ hurling title on 23 occasions, which is nine times more than the next school on the roll of honour, St. Flannan’s of Ennis.

Their dominance of the competition has been most pronounced in recent years.

Today’s Final against Presentation Athenry is the eight in a row they’ve contested and they’ve won five of the previous seven

How have they sustained such an undiminished appetite for success? Team joint-manager, Brian Dowling, puts it down to the simple fact that every year brings together a new group with fresh ambition.

“Every group is different,” he says. “What people have to realise is that every year we play it's a different group of players and a lot of them haven't won All-Irelands before so it's a new team every year.

“None of these lads have All-Ireland medals with St. Kieran's and hopefully they'll get their first on the 17th of March, but it's new territory for everybody there.

“While there is pressure in the school to achieve in hurling, when these lads come to St. Kieran's and walk through the gates they want to win as much as they can when they're there.

“But it's the same for Athenry, they're coming up to Croke Park to win on Paddy's Day like we are and it's going to be a huge battle on the day.”

Rather than build their tradition of success on a philosophy of how best to play the game of hurling, St. Kieran’s tend to cut their cloth to suit.

There’s not a ‘St. Kieran’s way’ as such that they work on with their teams from first year up to the Croke Cup.

Instead they assess the players they have in any given year, and formulate a game-plan designed to complement their skill-set.

“There's different management at different age-groups,” says Dowling. “Some schools probably bring teams all the way up with the same managers and probably have a set structure in terms of how they play.

“But in St. Kieran's there's different management group set-ups from first-year up to senior as they go up along.

“I think that's good because they learn different ways of playing and at the start of the year you have to see what you have. You either have a small, fast team or a physical team and then you play to those strengths.

“I suppose we'd look at it in different ways in terms of how we set up and then you'd look at the opposition too, you have to factor that in as well.

“So, no, I don't think the whole school has a philosophy in terms of how best to play the game. The basic thing is to get the skill right and the hard work right.

“The lads would feel they're privileged to be playing for the school and don't take it for granted. So every time they go out they try to do the jersey proud.”

Very impressive quarter-final and semi-final wins over St. Raphael’s College and Cashel Community School means St. Kieran’s come into the Final with a good head of steam.

They’ve players of the very highest calibre in their ranks like Killian Doyle, Aaron McEvoy, Harry Shine, Niall Shortall, Killian Corcoran, and Donagh Murphy, but joint-manager Richie Ruth believes they’ll be facing a team of similar quality in Presentation Athenry.

“They're littered with class all over the field,” he said. “They beat a very strong Thurles CBS outfit in the semi-final.

“It was as top quality game and Athenry got big scores in big moments and fully deserve to be in the final

“Every schools hurler has come up to Croke Park and watched their heroes throughout the years so it's fantastic that they get to have this platform to show their own skills and talents.”

Friday, March 17

Masita Post Primary Schools All-Ireland SHC ‘A’ Croke Cup Final

St. Kieran’s, Kilkenny v Presentation Athenry, Croke Park, 3pm