Ballyhea boss keen to get back to business
Diarmuid Sheehan Going from the Royal County to Ballyhea has been an education for their manager Adrian Gilligan
OBODY said life in the Premier Senior Hurling Championship was going to be easy, but when you are drawn in the same group as Midleton, Sarsfields and Douglas you have a right to feel somewhat misfortunate – and that is exactly what faces Ballyhea this season as they go in search of county glory.
Ballyhea, under the direction of new manager Adrian Gilligan will kick off their Premier Senior Hurling championship on August 1 with a game against Douglas in Mallow and, while the test is obvious, the new manager can’t wait to get going.
Gilligan takes the hot seat at the famous Cork club after being part of the backroom team in 2019 and despite hailing from Meath the Royal is now a firm favourite with the Avondhu players and fans.
“I grew up in south Meath, Enfield. I never played hurling so I don’t have that background, but
I guess when I moved down over 20 years ago I had no choice but to get involved in hurling.
“The fitness side of things was what I knew best and have been in Strength and Conditioning for years now. When I looked at it I just felt that hurling and football are fundamentally very similar and I found that an awful lot of the drills I would have been doing myself in football were very easy adapted to hurling and were quite beneficial so that is where I started really.
“I just added a little more every year and I learned most of what I know from others that I have worked with along the way. You learn from training and games and I suppose I will always be learning about the game.
“When I came in at the second half of last year I think we did well enough so I guess the players felt it was positive second half to the season and felt that maybe I would be worth a go at the top job so that is how it came about really.
“I am delighted to be involved with such a brilliant club as Ballyhea with such history, such passion and some wonderfully talented and committed players who give their all for the club.”
There is little doubting that Ballyhea were in something of a crisis situation on the pitch early in 2019 however Gilligan could see that the club had plenty to offer and while the transformation wasn’t instantaneous it did eventually come.
“I felt last year that the players have even more to give and felt that I would love to have a go at this so that really is why I am here.
“When you come down to the lowest point in a club the only way as they say is up and certainly when I arrived on there last year the club was at a low ebb, and it even got lower in the following few matches that we played.
“We took on Finbarr’s in the league and they just took us apart – it was actually demoralising and to pick it up from there in the space of six or seven weeks for the second round championship game against Bride Rovers was some turnaround and a great credit to the lads.
“It obviously didn’t come quickly as we played seven games between myself arriving and that Bride Rovers game and we lost all seven but you could see as the games went on that things were turning.
“You could see the green shoots, lads were getting fitter, getting the touch back and confidence was growing and I think at that stage we found when the backs were against the wall and we had nothing more to lose that we came out fighting.
“When a team have nothing to lose they are dangerous and that was where we were last year. I always thought we had the players to do something last year and it just worked out that we did.”
Gilligan has been impressed by what he has seen over the last 12 months, but believes there is more to come from a side and from players that are often over looked when analysing Ballyhea.
“In Ballyhea, thankfully, it isn’t all about one man anymore and Pa (O’Callaghan) is delighted about that too. If you even go back to last year you would see that Pa wasn’t our main talisman over the season it was in fact Eugene Leary was the man to mark so that it good it shows that the team is developing and it is not all about Pa – it is about the team and the squad.
“If you really want to dissect that team you would find a lot of talent going through it. Of course Pa is the household name from the club but if you look deeper you have players of the quality of former Cork intermediate hurler Maurice O’Sullivan, he is still possibly one of our best players at the ripe age of 34 – Maurice is a savage player, always minds himself and keeps himself fit.
“You have a generation gap there too between a lot of the younger lads and some of the older guys with the likes of Mick Morrissey at full back, Liam O’Connor at half back – stalwarts of the club who will always turn up on the big day for the club – mixed in there with some of the younger talent that is coming through like John Morrissey, young Jamie Copps (what a talent he is) and another young player Tom Hanley – another undiscovered talent who will hopefully shine when we need him later this month.
“All that goes to show that there really is plenty talent here and plenty to get our hopes up about.”
The contracted season may provide challenges to all, but for Gilligan it isn’t all negative – that said, the manager knows his side have plenty to do to make 2020 a success.
“We know we are up against it this season but I am not one to look for the easy option looking to miss the big sides. You can’t get out the rosary beads and the bible and start praying the day of the draw looking to get similarly matched teams all the way through the championship.
“It just doesn’t happen that way and that plan just isn’t going to work. You have to prepare as best you can and put your best team with the best tactics on the pitch. We didn’t get the best of draws, that is clear, but I always feel that if you want to win the championship you have to face and beat the big sides at some stage.
“We go in here with nothing to lose, our backs are to the wall again and we have to come out fighting again.
“If I have to face the big guns, as we will be doing early on this year, I’d rather face them in the first few rounds than to have to face them in a semi-final or a final when you really have to step up again and while this might be going off topic a bit I think that this whole Covid thing has really been something of a leveller for all sides and I think that teams
now are starting off on more of a level base – I predict you will find that championship matches will be closer and one off wins are a possibility.”
The 2020 championship is unlikely to suit any club with its limited training time and its short competitive window, but the Ballyhea manager does think that his side may not be as disadvantaged as some of the big boys – that said he needs to keep all his players available to play.
“We go into this very different championship confident. Does this new format suit us - yes it definitely does. We go into this competition with four of five weeks to train and then you are straight into championship – that definitely suits us. It will suit others as well but not all.
“What doesn’t suit us is that we do not have a big panel and if we do pick up injuries and you have some older stock in the starting 15 then injuries can be picked up easy and with three games in four weeks if you see a player pulling up holding his hamstring that’s him gone for the championship – simple as that – and in Ballyhea we haven’t got the squad to deal with too many injuries like that.
“That’s the part that I am really worried about is the injuries.
Three bid games in four weeks to start off a championship really hasn’t been done before and for us it has even gone to the stage that we are cautious about getting too many challenge games in as we can’t afford the loss but we are not the only ones in that boat obviously.”
Gilligan may be a “Royal” by birth, but he is only too aware of the traditions and rivalry that exists in north Cork hurling and while he won’t be squaring off against the neighbours in the coming weeks he does feel the rivalries locally help.
“Of course, I am not the best man to discuss the other hurling sides around us but you have to respect what the likes of Ballyhea, Charleville and Kanturk have been doing in recent years.”
All these clubs have achieved on many levels and all that helps hurling in the area and that of course helps our young fellows too. We will focus on Douglas first and see where that goes and worry about the others, including the neighbours, hopefully at a later date.
After taking on Douglas, Ballyhea will face two powerhouses of the game as fancied sides, Midleton and Sarsfields come looking to book their spots in the knockout stages. Ballyhea find themselves in a genuine group of death and while the Avondhu boys won’t be favourites it would be wrong for any of the big boys to take their submission for granted.
In Ballyhea, tradition, belief, talent and an uncompromising love for the club colours always comes to the fore at some stage and this season, despite the challenges, is unlikely to be any different.
What doesn’t suit us is that we do not have a big panel and if we do pick up injuries and you have some older stock in the starting fifteen injuries can be picked up