NEW BREAK IN HUNT FOR HURL

BRENDAN MAHER has spoken of his quest to retrieve THAT broken hurley that he scored the famous point with earlier this year.

Late on in Borris-ileigh’s Allireland semi-final win over St Thomas’s in January, Maher came up from his centre-back position to hit an insurance point free only for his stick to split on impact, though the ball still sailed between the posts.

Following the puckout, possession was quickly worked back to Maher, who was still in the corner-forward position and, remarkably, he slotted another point from out near the sideline with effectively half a hurley.

Although Borris went on to lose the final to Ballyhale Shamrocks a fortnight later, Maher was still named the AIB Club Hurler of the Year after a series of superb displays over the winter – though the broken hurley moment soared above all others in his highlights reel.

As such, he belatedly came to the conclusion that that particular piece of ash would be something worth holding on to – though the lockdown has prevented him from retrieving it just yet. He explained: “After I scored the point I got kind of carried away and I threw it over my shoulder into the open stand in the Gaelic Grounds.

“After the match, I thought I would really like to have that hurley but we could not find it and the club even contacted the Gaelic Grounds afterwards to see if it was found.

“Several weeks passed and I had given up on it when I got a letter from a young fellow in Gort and I read down through it. He said he was 12-years-old and that he was at the game where I scored the point with the broken hurley and that he had the hurley.

“I was there thinking, how am I going to ask him for it back?” he laughed, when speaking on the GPA’S Players’ Voice podcast.

“I wrote a letter back and I told him I would send him a