Early nineties marked by Intermediate double

ONE VICTORY tends to follow another quickly for the Rathgarogue-Cushinstown club.

The years 1979 to 1981 brought successive county titles in Junior hurling, Junior football and Intermediate football respectively, while the current crop have taken Junior and Junior ‘B’, Intermediate ‘A’ and Leinster Junior football honours since October of 2018.

In between, the early nineties were marked by qualification for both Senior championship semi-finals in the same year, although there was a nasty sting in the tail.

It all started on a positive note in 1991 when the club advanced to the two Intermediate deciders, drawing the hurling with Marshalstown on a 1-13 to 2-10 scoreline.

And one week before the replay, Rathgarogue-Cushinstown showed their versatility by returning to Senior football ranks with a narrow 1-8 to 0-10 victory against District rivals Fethard on a miserable day in Wexford Park.

Celebrations were put temporarily on hold as the players concentrated on their double bid, and it paid off as a 0-14 to 0-11 win saw them reach the top flight in hurling for the first time.

Brian White had once again captained the victorious football side, eleven years after leading the club out of Junior ranks, with the full team as follows:

Paul Merrigan; Brian White (capt.), Jim Lynch, Joe Morrissey; Paul Finn, Paul Lynch, David O’Dwyer; Pat McGrath, Shay White; Pat Cleary, Eamon Cleary, Barry Murphy; Brendan Dunne, Ray Murphy, Paud O’Dwyer. Sub. - Eamonn Jones.

Rathgarogue-Cushinstown certainly hit the ground running as a dual Senior club, qualifying for two semi-finals in 1992.

While the great Duffry Rovers football team of that era beat them comfortably by 0-15 to 0-7, they gave the Buffers Alley hurlers an almighty fright before bowing out on a 1-16 to 2-10 scoreline, having already ousted Faythe Harriers and Glynn-Barntown in the knockout championship.

That should have given them an opportunity to build for the future but, in bizarre circumstances, they were relegated back to Intermediate hurling despite reaching the last four, because relegation that year was based on results in the league from which teams were seeded for the championship.

The struggles that followed from 1993 until 2018 have been well documented, with just one Intermediate hurling title to show from 2006 along with defeats in the Intermediate football finals of 1997 (after a replay), 1999 and 2004 (after a replay), the Intermediate hurling finals of 2000 and 2001, and the Junior football finals of 2014 (after a replay) and 2017.