Warrior O’Keeffe was perfect leader
O’Keeffe and Michael O’Toole.
Keith Furlong opened the scoring on the 8th minute with a well taken point. Kiltegan were in front 0-5 to 0-2 at the break but then saw their lead whittled down to a point 0-6 to 1-2 when Kevin Flynn lashed the ball to the back of the Kiltegan net.
Seven minutes later a blunder on the part of the O’Tooles goalie when he blocked the ball into the path of oncoming forward Andy Coleman led to a goal when he was left with an easy tap over the line. The final score: Kiltegan 1-10, O’Tooles 1-3.
Scorers: Andy Coleman 1-0, John O’Toole 0-1, John Keogh 0-7, Geoffrey Bermingham 0-1, Keith Furlong 0-1.
This victory saw Kiltegan into a Leinster semi-final ten days later where they would meet Wexford champions Oulart-The Ballagh. The venue was Dr. Cullen Park in Carlow.
Kiltegan conceded an early goal and were always struggling after that with only Tom Byrne, Christy O’Toole and forwards Keith Furling and Ned Cremin proving a suitable match for their sweet striking fast-moving opponents.
In the end, Oulart-The Ballagh ran out easy winners on a score line of 3-14 to 0-5 and with that ended the dream of reaching a Leinster club final.
While the club was disappointed at not reaching a Leinster club final, they had achieved what they set out to do at the beginning of the year which was to win three titles in a row and write themselves into the history books. In 1995 they won Senior, Intermediate and Minor hurling championships.
IT might be 25 years ago and some of the memories might be faded but the wonderful achievement by the Kiltegan hurlers of capturing a three-in-a-row of Senior hurling titles in 1993, 94 and 95 still holds a special place in the heart of the 1995 captain Ciaran O’Keeffe.
The county stalwart felt the added pressure of being handed the captaincy on the third year for the first few weeks when the adventure began in 1995 but says that once the wheels started turning in the Kiltegan hurling machine there was no time for anything other than total focus on the game.
‘You had to live with it, otherwise your game wouldn’t be played and you had to make sure and do your best.
‘It was a huge honour (to be made captain). I certainly didn’t see it coming. Any one of those lads on that team could have been captain,’ he said.
The teak-tough centre back says that the quarter of a century since that amazing year when they toppled Carnew Emmets at the second time of asking have gone by in the ‘blink of an eye’.
He recalls a different era at that time just short of the new century; a time of no social media, few phones, no text messages, no WhatsApp, no ‘please reply’ to requests for training.
Back then he remembers lads being told of games at a training session and lads turning up of their own accord and no chasing or haranguing.
‘If you didn’t turn up for training you were letting 20 lads or more down,’ he said.
O’Keeffe remembers a time of less injuries due to the vastly different way of life back then.
‘When we were young, we were in the bog running turf, pitching bales of hay.
‘People don’t know what a square bale is nowadays, they don’t know a lump of turf unless it comes in a bag.
‘Back then when you came to a gate you put one hand on the gate and you jumped the gate and landed on the other side and your knees were stronger because of it.
‘Everywhere you went you rode a bike, that was your transport. It was just a different way of life,’ he said.
The Kiltegan captain didn’t have the easiest of times during that two-game decider against Carnew, either on the field or off of it.
While the first game was being played his uncle Sean Foley was being waked close to Knockananna and after the game he went back to the house where he had the pleasure of informing one of the main inspirations behind Kiltegan’s hurling awakening, Peter Keogh, who couldn’t make all the game in Aughrim, of the result and that they’d get another bite at the cherry.
‘He smiled from ear to ear,’ recalls Ciaran.
The game itself was tough with ground hurling bringing a pace and a physicality to it that is rarely seen in the modern era. Both teams were populated by big, tough men and peppered with sprightly players in defence and attack such as Denis Hayes, John Keogh, Timmy Collins and the superb Don Hyland.
The elements couldn’t have been any different on both days unless torrential rain had fallen.
The first game was played under a blazing sun, the second with a gale-force wind blowing down the field, favouring Carnew in the first half that seen them take a 1-5 to 0-3 lead into the dressing room, but at the Kiltegan backs for the second that seen them draw level and eke out a fantastic result that will be forever remembered in the proud club on the crossroads.
The sending off of Carnew’s Jim Bob Doyle was to have a major impact on that replay.
O’Keeffe says that it was a tough game to play with plenty of hard knocks and heavy blows on and off the ball but that his main aim was to hurl as best as he could and do his team and his club proud in the process.
Ciaran O’Keeffe recalls the final whistle and the desire to get to the stand where his old friend Jackie Napier, the then hurling chairman, would present him with the cup.
O’Keeffe and Napier had traveled many long miles together with the county team, as had many of both panels that hurled as best they could in that county final replay and it was fitting that the Bray Emmets man would be on hand to present the cup to a most worthy leader.
And down among the crowd somewhere with a broad smile on his face and a wicker hat upon his head was Peter Keogh. What pride that great man must have felt as he watched his young warrior accept the cup. What a sense of achievement he must have felt to look around at a squad of young men whom he had coached and guided up from the time they could walk as they celebrated the capture of the three-in-a-row.
‘He was walking on cloud 9,’ recalls Ciaran. ‘He brought us all up from the time hurling started in Kiltegan in the early 70s. Hurling was his first love,’ he added.
O’Keeffe looks back on his year as captain of the Kiltegan Senior hurlers with huge pride and a massive sense of acheivement.
Winning any county title is never easy but to win three county crowns on the trot is a feat reserved for very special groups of players led by very special leaders.
O’Keeffe’s performances in those two games are testament to his bravery, his hurling and his sporting ability.
He was never found wanting at any stage in that campaign and can rightly hold his head high.