Young players are ‘breath of fresh air’

With Graham Keogh BEING presented with the captaincy of his beloved Carnew team is something incredibly important to Graham Keogh even though he sees the role as symbolic rather than practical.

But, at 36 years old, the teak tough defender is delighted to get the nod and to have the chance to lead his men inot battle this coming Sunday in Aughrim as they bid to stop the three-in-a-row bid by Bray emmets.

“It’s a great privilege to be captain of Carnew. Casey phoned me at the start of the year and he asked me to be captain. It’s a great honour for myself and the family.

“I came on the scene in 1999 under Fr Martin Casey, he brought us all on, we were off the previous Minor team. There are six or seven of us left, three Collins, three Kennedys and myself and Nick Skelton and Don Hyland, we’re left out of a panel of 25. We’re on our last legs probably.

“It’s great to get it (the captaincy) but realistically all a captain has to do nowadays is go up and take the toss. On this team now we’ve plenty of captains, lots of leaders. The thing about this team that has really struck me is that all the young lads are so used to winning. The likes of Enda Donahue, Wayne Kinsella, Padraig Doran, Jack Doyle, these lads, they’ve lots of Minors, they’ve won all juvenile, they’re used to winning and now that they’ve came on to the Senior panel they’re expecting to win and nothing else will do for them. They’re a breath of fresh air to this team, new energy,” he added..

February 15 was the start date for the Carnew Emmets training and there’s been plenty of hurling and football played since then. Keogh says the football did take up a bit of time but that for the last two months it’s been pure hurling and they’re seeing the benefits in recent practice matches around Leinster.

“We started off back on February 15 and from the word go our aim was to get back to the county hurling final. It’s gone well. We had a great win against Bray and then we had a bad start against Glenealy that left us with too much to do. Then we had to concentrate on football for two months and the hurling took a back seat but now that we are out of the football we have had six to eight weeks of non stop hurling under our belts which is a great help.

“It is hard on the dual club and the dual player, it’s hard to get things right but in fairness to Casey he does seem to have got it right. We were unlucky this year, a lot f lads got knocks and couldn’t play but we’ve had six weeks of non-stop hurling and it’s been a great help and we’ve had various practice matches all over Leinster and that has brought us on as well,” he added.

Graham Keogh looks back on last year’s defeat to John Henderson’s men as a learning curve. A lot of the younger players are now a year older and a year stronger and although he believes that Bray are a very good team, he does feel that Carnew are in a much healthier state this year.

“Last year was our first county final in a few years and it was the first county final for the younger lads and this year they are a year older and a year stronger and they’ve had a whole year of playing at Senior but Carnew are under no illusions that this is a very good Bray team.

“They are going for three in a row and I don’t think there’s a lot of pressure on this team (Carnew). Even at the start of the year there was nobody expecting us to get back to the final whereas Bray are the county champions, they’re going for three in a row and in the last three years the only team that has bet them in the championship is Carnew so to us this is just part of the process. Bray won a lot of Minors there for a while and now they’ve came on to the senior panel and now Carnew have won the last three or four Minor titles. I think if we play the occasion and play as well as we can hurl I think we won’t be too far away,” he added.

The role of Gary Jameson is a key one for Graham Keogh. He says that the training programme has them peaking at exactly the right time.

“In fairness to Casey, he brought in Gary Jameson this year and he put in a training programme for us and we spent a lot of the summer in the sand dunes in Brittas Bay. That was hard work and there were a lot of dinners reappearing. We have pout the hard work in this year and the aim was to peak in late September, early October so I don’t think fitness is going to be a problem this year.

“On top of that we have a much stronger panel this year. We have three or four very strong subs who can come on and add something to the panel.

But he does feel that Bray are still a strong side who are totally deserving of their respect in terms of hurling ability.

“Bray didn’t hurl to their capability in the county semi-final and they still scored 2-20.

“They’re forwards, on paper, are the best forwards in the county without a shadow of a doubt and the two main scoring threats, obviously, are going to be Christy ad Mikey but they have some great hurlers all over the field in John Henderson and Diarmuid Masterson.

“They play to a good system; they’re very hard to break down. Hopefully we can get the match ups right,” he added.