Jimmy Lee manages both the Newcastle West senior football and hurling teams.
By John Harrington
The dual player might be close to extinction at inter-county level, but the club game is proving you can play both codes and blossom.
Clubs like Slaughtneil in Derry and Loughmore-Casteliney and Upperchurch-Drombane in Tipperary have made headlines in recent years for the manner in which they’ve thrived in both football and hurling with pretty much the same pool of players.
Limerick club Newcastle West deserve to be included in that list too after their exploits this year that saw them reach the Limerick Premier Intermediate hurling semi-final and this Sunday’s Senior Football Final.
14 of the team that will contest Sunday’s decider against Adare are dual players. According to Jimmy Lee, who manages both the club’s football as well as hurling teams, putting the same emphasis on both codes is an approach more GAA clubs should take.
“I won't say it was an extreme challenge, it was just making sure we didn't overburden them in terms of training them,” says Lee of managing both the Newcastle West football and hurling teams.
“There was no rocket-science to what we did, we trained the same nights. We'd start one session earlier and the other session came in afterwards and the dual players divided their time between both of them.
“It most definitely can be done. To be fair to young fellas, they want to do it. I think clubs making players decide between one code and the other is the wrong approach.
“We're losing GAA players because we're asking them to decide and they don't want to decide. Kids want to play every game and it’s up to club executives to make sure they can do that .
“We're lucky in that sense that our club executive are fulsome in their support of playing both codes at the highest level we can.
“It's most definitely doable, it's just how clubs approach it, and, more so, how managers approach it. I mean, I wasn't going to fight with myself!”
Team-captain, Iain Corbett, will be a key man for Newcastle West on Sunday.
Newcastle West are a great example of a club that do a lot of things right and are now reaping the rewards.
If they win Sunday’s Final it’ll be their third county senior football title in four years, and this rich seam of achievement has been mined from a very well-run underage set-up in the club.
“There is a lot going on underage in both codes,” says Lee. “That's really where it starts. We have a few 18-year-olds in the squad at the minute and that's really where it's coming from. Without that you don't have anything sustainable.
“We're getting one or two through every year to the senior team which is important to keep things ticking over. If you ever have too much of a gap you'll have problems.
“We brought five lads in from last year's U-20 Limerick football team so that has really helped. And there's a few more on the Limerick underage teams down below that as well that we'd be hoping to bring through in time.”
There’s a nice balance of youth and experience in the Newcastle West panel new, with that new generation learning from veterans like the Quilligan brothers Thomas and Michael, Mike McMahon, Mike O’Keeffe, and Mike McMahon.
There’s also the hugely positive influence of county players like team-captain Iain Corbett and 2022 All-Star nominee, Cian Sheehan, in the mix.
“Having Iain, Cian, and a few more that have been involved in the Limerick senior set-up is important,” says Lee.
“They're there training and doing the hard yards in the local club and they're around the kids who are all learning from them. They're bringing along these 18-year-olds who look up to them as their heroes and are now playing with them. It does definitely help to have the lads there.”
2022 All-Star nominee, Cian Sheehan, is key player for the Limerick and Newcastle West footballers.
Sunday’s Final is a repeat of last year’s which Newcastle West won by six points, but Lee doesn’t think it’s wise to read too much into that result.
Adare were champions in 2017, 2018, and 2020, and he’s expecting a contest between two evenly matched teams to go down to the wire.
“There isn't a whole pile between us,” he says.
“Adare know what they're at and what they're about. They're comfortable in the way they play.
“They know us well, we know them well. It'll be a ding-dong battle. I'd say there will only be a point or two between the two teams at the end of the day.”
