Championship victory was ‘very personal’ for Ray
LIKE the conductor of an orchestra, Ray Nolan dominated this Dacia Cars Intermediate Hurling Championship final from start to finish in Joule Park Aughrim on Sunday.
A true gentleman off the field and a thoroughly sporting competitor on it, the Avondale and Wicklow hurling legend was the fully deserving winner of the Man of the Match award after helping his side to the championship victory that will go a long way towards giving hurling the vital boost it needs in the town of Rathdrum.
‘From the start of the year everything has gone fairly well for us, in fairness,’ said Ray not long after the final whistle. ‘Emmet (O’Sullivan) stuck by us. This time last year we couldn’t get 12 lads to a hurling field, and this year we had a panel of something like 28. It’s great to be back Senior, whether I’m there or not next year, I don’t know. It gets tougher, it gets tougher, I can assure you. But it’s absolutely fantastic,’ he added.
Dropping down to Intermediate was a huge decision for the Avondale club to make last year. It was a choice that divided the ranks but looking out on Joule Park Aughrim and seeing exactly what the win means to the players and supporters you couldn’t help but think that it was a healthy move overall. The fact that the year at the lower grade has helped bring on a number of younger players is very important says Ray.
‘From the start of the year we set our sights on winning the Intermediate, getting back to Senior and try and push on. We’ve a couple of young lads coming through there which is excellent, a massive help, and for me to play with them was a breath of fresh air,’ he said.
‘For them lads to go back up to Senior ranks at that age would have been very tough on them. So, we said that we would rebuild, drop back down. Some people were happy with it, some people weren’t, but look, it’s paid off today, it’s paid off, and we’re Intermediate champions and we’ll go back to the board next year and see how things go, but we’re absolutely delighted, we’re absolutely delighted,’ he added.
It’s no secret that Ray Nolan has endured a tough time in the past year with the loss of his beloved wife Wendy to illness. Ray said that he had a stop to make with the cup on the journey back to Rathdrum.
‘Apart from just winning it, for me it was very, very personal. I had a bit of a tough time there over a year ago and I had to make a decision on what to do and so on the way home I’m going to bring that cup into my wife, I’m going to sit down and show it to her and I know she’s looking down on