Byrne keen to mount one more Rangers challenge

REMEMBER Mount Leinster Rangers? The small club from south Carlow that went on an incredible run to the AIB All-Ireland final in 2014 and starred on a television ad that never seemed to leave our screens. Well, they disappeared from the scene after that fairytale campaign. For the following three years, they were trapped inside their county borders, failing to build on that emotional Leinster title. But, having escaped Carlow once more, they have provincial glory within their sights again. This Sunday, Rangers travel to Tullamore to meet Kilcormac/ Killoughey, the 2013 Leinster champions, in the provincial semi-final. Edward Byrne was one of their key players on that 2013-14 campaign and he feels the pressure is off the players now they have reached the provincial stage. ‘For the last three years, we have been poor in Carlow and our main focus was to win the county championship,’ Byrne (right) explains. ‘Once we got that out of the way, anything after that is a bonus. ‘The fact that when we did win Leinster, we weren’t able to win in Carlow for the three years after that, tells you that club hurling in Carlow is very strong.’ The club was only founded in 1987 as an amalgamation of Borris, Ballymurphy and Rathanna. They are positioned just three miles from the Kilkenny border — they play their league hurling in the Marble County — while Wexford is only seven miles away. Hurling is woven into the fabric of life in that part of the country. Rangers’ fairy-tale season has rubbed off the Carlow county team with Byrne among nine club players on the current side that claimed Christy Ring honours last year. Nevertheless, the small pocket of hurling in the county can create problems. ‘Hurling is in a decent place in Carlow at the moment, with winning the Christy Ring. Sometimes, because it is such a small community, if a few players can’t commit for whatever reason, it makes it tougher on the rest of us. ‘Being so close to Kilkenny, any of the club teams in Carlow have shown that they can match them in the senior and intermediate levels,’ he insists. As for St Patrick’s Day 2014 and the defeat to Portmuna, Byrne refuses to reflect on what might have been. ‘Portmuna were a very good team at that time, they had been there before and when they have the likes of Joe Canning, it didn’t make things easy for us. ‘We enjoyed that whole year very much but it is in the past now,’ he recalls. ‘Of course we were disappointed to have lost the final but we could have no complaints. We were beaten by the better team.’