Shinrone and K-K set up hurling final rematch

By Kevin Egan

Six and eight points were the respective winning margins in the two senior hurling championship semi-finals last weekend, but to use horse racing parlance, Shinrone and Kilcormac-Killoughey both won “going away”, and in both contests, it felt like another ten minutes of hurling would have stretched the lead out to double figures.

Shinrone overcame Ballinamere by 1-19 to 0-16, while Kilcormac-Killoughey defeated St Rynagh's on a scoreline of 1-22 to 0-17.

Both clubs will feel very content with the manner of their wins, as both had to dig deep and find their best hurling, and they each answered those questions emphatically.

By keeping the tempo and quality levels high against St Rynagh’s, Kilcormac-Killoughey stretched their opponents past breaking point, and simply exposed that there were a lot of blue and gold hurlers on the field who have slipped off their peak form from the turn of the decade, while the younger hurlers that have stepped into the breach still have some work to do to push on to the next level.

For Ballinamere, the lessons of 2023 will make for much more favourable reading, when the disappointment of their second-half collapse recedes this week. The low hanging fruit is easy to see in areas such as set plays, defensive structures and other coachable aspects.

Skill levels and the ability to hurl off the cuff is not lacking in that panel, and if they can address those deficits and continue their forward progress, they look like the side most likely to usurp the top two in the years ahead.

They’ll have to kick on, because it’s plainly clear that the bar has been raised. The 2022 Offaly championship was enjoyable for a host of reasons, not least because so many clubs were competitive. At least five sides could argue that if things had played out just a little bit differently and they had just found a couple of points of improvement or eliminated a couple of mistakes at the right time, they might have ended the year with the big prize. But Both K-K and Shinrone have clearly pushed on this year.

Shinrone have the perfect age profile and are still hurling well, but the confidence and resolve that they’ve gleaned from last year’s win is evident.

K-K, on the other hand, have simply got better on the field. It would be easy to focus on the younger hurlers that have stepped up to this level, but the more established players are also pushing things on. Cillian Kiely is in the form of his life, Jack Screeney seems to have settled into a role that suits his ability, and Oisín Mahon is now a formidable opponent for any forward.

Too often in the GAA, the natural instinct to focus on underage as the only way to improve leads to a lack of effort when it comes to getting more out of established senior players, who are deemed to be the finished article. Both K-K and Shinrone have highlighted that one of those goals doesn’t have to preclude the other.