Busy Saturday at Croke Park brings climax to seismic Leinster club hurling championship

Next Saturday, on a busy day at Croke Park, the Leinster club finals will be held within hours of the special congress to decide on the future of football. There will be Dublin interest in both, thanks to Cuala and Na Fianna, who are favourites to win their respective matches.
This would result in only the fourth club double for a county in the province. Dublin achieved the feat in 2016 when St Vincent’s and Cuala won the football and hurling titles, coming after Portlaoise and Camross of Laois in 1986 and Offaly’s Gracefield and St Rynagh’s in the first year of the official championship, 1970.
It is a surprisingly seldom occurrence when set against the club strengths in Leinster but the dominant counties in one code frequently have little profile in the other. Kilkenny, unsurprisingly, lead the way in hurling with 24 club titles, half of which have been won by county powerhouse Ballyhale Shamrocks.
The total for all other counties in both codes is 29. Offaly have won 17 between the two championships but the last of their four football titles came in 1986, whereas all but three of their 13 hurling wins have come since then.
Dublin – equally unsurprisingly – lead the way in football titles with 25 but have won only three hurling – two in the last eight years by Cuala, who went on to add the All-Ireland both times. The club’s appearance on Saturday comes after they won their first county football title last month.
Hurling sees the culmination of an extraordinarily open championship. The competitiveness of last weekend’s semi-finals was further evidence of a levelling of standards.
On Saturday, former Wexford hurler Des Mythen, who won a Leinster title with Oulart-The Ballagh in 2015 and is now a coach, made a slightly prophetic point about the greater competitiveness this year.
“I think there’s more depth to the Leinster Championship. That’s been proved by Castletown-Geoghegan beating the Kilkenny champions.”
On Sunday, Offaly’s Kilcormac-Killoughey just about defeated the Westmeath champions, who, as Mythen pointed out, created a major shock by eliminating Kilkenny’s Thomastown a week previously – and by a thumping 11 points.
Bear in mind that Kilkenny clubs were after setting a new record for domination in the province, having won the previous five titles – and in all likelihood the sixth would have been won had Covid not intervened – to surpass the mark set by Wexford clubs between 1985 and ‘88.
There is a recurring phenomenon that certain clubs have such a tradition and legacy that they appear to intimidate opponents once out of the county. Sunday was case in point. Thomastown, a first county title since the 1940s under their belt, were never going to cast the same shadow as Ballyhale, who had beaten Castletown 5-25 to 0-15 two years earlier and whose record includes leading the All-Ireland roll of honour.
Kilcormac were the only team going into the semi-finals who had won a Leinster title but it still took an injury-time goal from young Offaly prodigy Adam Screeney to settle the matter after a helter-skelter final 10 minutes in which Castletown had looked likely winners at various stages.
Na Fianna became only the fourth Dublin club to reach successive provincial finals but they too had a scrap on their hands before beating St Martin’s of Wexford.
The Dublin champions narrowly lost last year’s final to Kilkenny’s O’Loughlin Gaels, an experience that should stand to them at Croke Park this weekend. A last-minute free was the difference in a match in which Na Fianna were without the injured Dónal Burke.
Manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin said on Sunday that they hadn’t been haunted by the setback.
“I wouldn’t say regrets from last year. I thought we hurled well for a long period. The game was there in the last four or five minutes. And against any top-class team, like O’Loughlin’s or like Kilcormac, it’s small things that make a difference.
“Last year it fell for O’Loughlin’s. We’re looking forward now to Saturday night.”
He also mentioned they played their final opponents quite recently. “Yeah, we played them not too long ago. They beat us. There’s a lot going on in Offaly hurling and a lot of it is driven on from Kilcormac. They’ll no doubt be favourites next week but we’ll be ready for that and give it our best shot.”
Although the underdog status is much coveted, Na Fianna are in fact favourites for the weekend.