‘He’s brought a freshness to the group’

THE announcement of James Hickey taking over the reins at Carnew Emmets raised a few eyebrows earlier this year. There’s very few who don’t know of the Mount Leinster Rangers and Carlow legend, if not from the playing fields then from the AIB advert where he implores his clubmates to drive on to the All-Ireland club championship final.

Hickey is pure passion and his infleunce on the Carnew players has been noticeable. Carnew captain Wayne Kinsella agrees.

‘Yeah, 100 per cent. James came in and he’s brought a freshness to the whole group and he’s just a very passionate man. It’s something that we needed. We needed a bit of a fightback in us, it’s hard to explain it. He’s revived something in us anyway.

‘He’s big on discipline. We’re trying to work hard on that and trying to improve that aspect of the game and not be getting ourselves in trouble for nothing. It was something that was letting us down in recent years, getting red cards or getting balls brought up or whatever, he’s big on making sure we cut that down and concentrate on our own game.

‘The man is very passionate, he loves getting stuck into us’.

Last season will go down as a forgettable one. The passion from within the players just wasn’t there.

‘Last year was a bad year for us, I don’t know, we never got going and then we got kind of unlucky against Greystones because if we had beaten them you’d never know what might have happened in the semi-finals. I don’t know, a bit of bad luck and a bit of...we hadn’t got the same drive as we have this year, James has brought a bit of drive back into us this year and we’re after winning the league there now and we want to just drive on.

First up for Hickey’s men is the old enemy. ‘Ah sure, we’re playing Glenealy, and it’s going to be a whole different game than the league final. They were missing a few lads for that and we’ve a few lads injured but sure, you know yourself, it’s Carnew against Glenealy, it’ll be a good match.

Getting the nod for the captaincy was a huge honour for Kinsella.

‘James just rang me and said him and the selectors were talking and that he was putting my name forward and he rang me back then and asked me and I was hugely honoured to take it.

‘It was massive. I always wanted to be captain since I was a young lad. I wasn’t expecting it. It’s great to be picked.

‘I’ve been playing since I was six and I’ve been looking up at them lads, some of the lads I’m still playing with even, andit’s a huge honour.’