JACK DOYLE — MINOR HURLER OF YEAR

All the ingredients needed to become a successful and talented hurler were there for Carnew’s Jack Doyle from the start when you look at it.

Born to a hurling man father (Jim Bob Doyle, former Wicklow hurling officer and Wexford native) and into the hurling mad stronghold of Carnew where he grew up looking at the likes of Don Hyland and Graham Keogh and many others returning from Aughrim with county crowns, there was little doubt that he would become an accomplished hurler but there was also something a little bit extra that went into the process of making him the talented player that he is.

Most normal children will learn to hurl out in their yard with their father or mother or brothers or sisters or up in the club or out with their friends but Jack had a secret weapon in the form of his childminder who from the time Jack was barely walking had a hurl in his hand and was playing ground hurling with him on the floor of the Doyle kitchen.

Kitty Darcy was the woman in question. Mother to Thomas ‘Doc’ Darcy, manager of the Carnew Emmets senior team in 2015, Kitty can sit back with a broad smile this week when she picks up a copy of the Wicklow People where she’ll find a photo of a beaming Jack with his Minor Hurler of the Year award after he guided his beloved Carnew to a Minor crown at the expense of the old enemy Glenealy.

It was a busy year for Jack who was also a revelation for the senior team in their journey to the county final where Bray Emmets needed a replay to finally put them away. Receiving the award is something that delights Jack Doyle but he is nothing if not humble and he says that the Minor Hurler of the Year award could have went to any of his Carnew Emmets colleagues.

“Personally I was delighted with it but it could have went to anyone on the Carnew team. There were lots of good Minors from Glenealy and other clubs as well so it could have went to anyone but I was delighted with it.

“It was a good year for me. Disappointing that we didn’t go that extra step with the seniors but with Minor and all it was very good. We were flying with the Minors but we came up against a very tough Gleenaly team but we got through it in the end thankfully.

“It’s a big relief to get through it because I suppose we were favourites all year and everyone was expecting us to just walk it but we knew it wasn’t going to be that easy and when we did it then it was just a huge relief,” he said.

“For the last few years we haven’t won a Senior so we just have to go out and do our best,” he added when asked about the pressure on teams to win in the Wexford border town.

For the second year running Carnew Emmets made it to the county final and, yet again, they would be facing Bray in the decider.

The drawn game was Jack’s first senior county final, not that you would have thought it by looking at his performance.

“I was shaking with the nerves on the first day, my first Senior championship final. Once the ball was thrown in the nerves just went and I’ve been hurling since I was six so there was no difference and we stuck to the game plan and we could have won it and we could have lost it.

“The second day, the start that Bray got killed us. I think it was 1-3 to no score and that really killed us.

“We never started at all. Still to this day I don’t know why we didn’t start well.

“I don’t know why. The dressing room was very bad after it,” he said.

“After the first day we had so much hope and we knew that we could beat them and then the way it finished on the second day everyone knew it wasn’t a true showing of us and we were all disappointed.