Annacurra set for battle
Nothing easy expected
THE secret to any success in team sport is unity – unity in belief, unity in ambition, unity in desire, unity in effort – and the Annacurra Junior camogie team have that unity in spades as they prepare to battle neighbours Aughrim in the county final in Baltinglass this Saturday at 1pm.
A glance at their sporting record for 2018 shows a fruitful and successful year. Win, lose or draw in Saturday’s championship decider, they still have the league final to look forward to against Kilcoole after a memorable league campaign, but managers Ivor Lehane and Max Molloy are looking no further than the big on in Baltinglass and Lehane says that victory would part one of a two-part series and that it would be extra sweet to get that title by winning the local derby.
Lehane is a Dublin native who hurled at Intermediate and Junior level for Cuala before injury curtailed his playing career. A move to Aughrim over a decade ago left him in prime position late last year for an approach to take over the Annacurra camogie team. Both himself and former Carnew native Max Molloy have been training the club’s Under-12 side in recent years and are still currently engaged in that role while also managing the adult team.
Ivor says that they took over a group of players rather than a team and that the progress they have made in all aspects of their play this season has been very impressive.
‘This Annacurra team has come on hugely this season,’ he said. ‘We’ve won all our championship games so far.
‘We inherited a group of players more so than a team and we’ve spent a huge amount of time with them, training them to work as a team, building their confidence, their fitness and getting them to start hurling like a unit.
‘It’s taken a lot of work and dedication and they all wanted to do it. We’ve had one or two additional players come in which has been a big help as well,’ he added.
The group came together in February. Ivor Lehane and Max Molloy sat them down and tried to gauge where they were at and what they wanted to achieve from this sport they had chosen to dedicate so much time to.
A ‘social contract’ was agreed (Lehane is wary of the word ‘rules’, thinking that it sounds too harsh for what the group agreed upon) and the management team gave them four weeks to prove that they wanted the success and progress by the manner in which they applied themselves to attending training and then in their application at training.
Needless to say, the management team have been hugely impressed with the reaction of this group of players who have claimed two Intermediate scalps this season, including Kiltegan who contest the Intermediate final after the Junior battle has been waged.
It’s not just winning a Junior championship or league that is the aim of this improving group of camogie players. Together with Lehane and Molloy they are looking much further ahead, and their vision is coloured with great ambition yet grounded with important realism.
‘We’re going out to win both the championship and the league. Saturday is part one. There’s still another job to do.
‘The girls have put in seven months of hard work and dedication and they are well equipped to move up to Intermediate.
‘Our plan is to win the Intermediate next year. We’ve already beaten two Intermediate teams and beaten them well.
‘The level this team is hurling at, if we can get their fitness level up to scratch then there’s no reason why they can’t get to the final and win it. If not then definitely within two or three years and then go up Senior after that. That’s where we have to be going,’ he added.
Lehane says that it’s not mindless ambition that is driving his team. He says it an ‘agreed sense of ambition’ within the club.
‘We build their confidence and they want more so we’ll see how it goes. We’re trying to attract more players to the club.
‘There’s an awful lot of players at the right age (in this club) who have given up. We want to attract new players and older players. If we could attract three or four more players into the panel for next season, then that would be hugely important. It’s all about the panel,’ he added.
Neighbours Aughrim await in the final. Annacurra have beaten Rachael Campbell’s side twice already this year but are expecting a major battle when the two teams take to the field on Saturday.
‘We’re not expecting an easy game in the slightest. It’s irrelevant that we have beaten them already this year, in our heads.
‘We know they will come at us and we will have to be in the right frame of mind from the first ball. We are certainly not underestimating Aughrim,’ he said.