Easkey are aiming for a return to Croke Park

AIB GAA HURLING ALL-IRELAND JUNIOR CLUB C’SHIP SEMI-FINAL: Easkey v St Catherine’s (Cork) Saturday, December 16: Duggan Park, Ballinasloe, 1.30pm

IT HAS been a rollercoaster year for Easkey’s senior hurlers. And it could get even better. Beaten in the AIB GAA Hurling AllIreland Junior Club Championship by Cork’s Ballygiblin last January, the combination of skilled hurlers from west Sligo neighbours Easkey and St Farnan’s are now just one victory away from another game in the majestic setting that is Croke Park. Standing in their way are Munster champions St Catherine’s (Mallow), with Ballinasloe’s Duggan Park the setting for Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final (throw-in 1.30pm). In between these games against two formidable Cork teams, Easkey have been busy.

They won a fourth successive Sligo Senior Hurling Championship, although they failed to sparkle in their county final defeat of Naomh Eoin (which was the fifth consecutive clash of Easkey and Naomh Eoin in a county hurling final).

If Easkey did just enough to retain their Sligo title it was a strange campaign as they received two walkovers (from CooleraStrandhill and Calry-St Joseph’s) in the competition’s round-robin phase.

When into Connacht, once Leitrim’s Carrick were taken care of in a onesided semi-final, came their biggest game yet – that ding-dong clash with Ballinasloe.

For Saturday’s immense challenge, Easkey will lean on last year’s experience as well as those tense fixtures against Naomh Eoin (county final) and Ballinasloe (provincial decider). Michael Conway, who is chairperson of Easkey GAA Club as well as being part of the hurling team management along with Brian Healy and Enda Moylan, pointed out that Easkey have had decent challenge games in recent weeks – playing Mayo’s Tooreen (the Connacht GAA Club Intermediate Hurling Championship winners) and Donegal side Setanta, who won this year’s Ulster GAA Club Intermediate Hurling Championship. Despite Easkey’s proven resilience and array of outstanding hurlers – the likes of Finnian Cawley,

Rory McHugh, Niall Kilcullen, Fionn Connolly, Thomas Cawley, Andrew Kilcullen, Joe McHugh, Jimmy Gordon, Mikey Gordon and Gavin Connolly – St Catherine’s will ask the big questions at Duggan Park.

Easkey will also rely on unsung heroes such as Eoghan Rua McGowan, Fionn Moylan, Ronan Molloy and Dónall Hanley for this daunting clash with St Catherine’s.

The Cork side defeated Ardmore (Waterford), Ballinahinch (Tipperary) and Feenagh-Kilmeedy (Limerick) en route to seizing silverware.

Their Munster triumph was by a margin of two points, 2-14 to 1-15, at Mallow. Eoin Condon goaled twice for the winners, while Seán O’Donoghue, an 18-year-old free-taker, bagged 0-9 (five of which came from frees).

East Cork outfit St Catherine’s are managed by Denis Walsh, a former dual player with Cork who had a spell in charge of his native county’s senior hurling team as well as that of Waterford.

Michael Conway attended the Munster decider and was impressed by St Catherine’s, who actually lost Cork GAA’s Premier Junior Hurling Championship final by two points but