F DESTINY
Cuala (Dublin) Na Piarsaigh (Limerick) All-ireland SHC club final, 3.45pm
v HAVING become the first Dublin club to win the Allireland crown last year, Cuala are on the brink of joining an even more exclusive club today when they take on 2016 champions Na Piarsaigh in a dream final.
Cuala’s achievement in reaching another AIB All-ireland club final is perhaps best reflected by the fact they’re just the third first-time winners to achieve that feat.
Sarsfields of Galway did it 24 years to become the first club to retain the Tommy Moore Cup.
Six years later St Joseph’s Doorabarefield returned to the decider 12 months after winning it, but lost out to Athenry.
Other than that, Portumna and Birr are the only clubs to have retained the title but did so having won it previously.
“It is a big achievement, especially if you win,” says Cuala and Dublin defender Cian O’callaghan on getting back to the final.
“But the key word there is ‘win’. But it is a big achievement. And not too many clubs can do it.
“It’s a bit of a novelty preparing for an All-ireland final.
“Because it’s a club and you’re all so close with everyone’s families, there’s obviously that kind of… something extra. But I think this year we’ve probably been a bit better with our preparations. We’ve been there, we’ve done that.
“You can’t get caught in the excitement. You can’t get caught in the pub talk. Because there is a lot of that naturally.
“People who have been involved in the club for years, they get excited. And we just have to park that.”
Only one club, Portumna in 2011, reached a third successive final, which they lost to Ballyhale Shamrocks, so O’callaghan is aware that this is likely a brief window of opportunity that they have to make the most of.
“This Cuala team might not be together again. Lads get married, lads move away, lads get different jobs.
“I suppose that’s one of the big things that’s driving us on, that while we’re in the present, we try and win as much as we can.
“And it is hard after you go out to come back and be All-ireland champions again. But at the same time, we have to strike while the iron is hot.”
After a relatively slow start to the Dublin Championship – they lost their opening game to Ballyboden St Enda’s – Cuala have built momentum steadily and, as they have tended to do in the last few seasons, breezed past opposition in Leinster before comfortably beating Liam Mellows in last month’s All-ireland semi-final.
“Our hunger is massive this year,” O’callaghan insists. “It’s just as big, if not bigger than last year.
“You don’t want to be known as the team that won a flukey All-ireland or a flukey anything. But having said that, I’m sure Na Piarsaigh want that as much as we do.
“It comes down to simple decisions on the day.”
Too many club hurling finals have tended to be one-sided affairs in the past 20 years or so, though all the indications are that this game will buck the trend.
“Every year they’ve got out of Limerick, they’ve gone on to win Munster,” says O’callaghan of Na Piarsaigh.
“Which is kind of frightening. Which shows the calibre of everything, the players, the management, the training, the ethos of what the club is about.
“We do expect them to be really strong. We’ve been lucky that we’ve got things right in the last three years after a long barren stretch.
“But we want to keep going and make sure things keep going well into the next few years.”
It’s a bit of a novelty to be preparing for an All-ireland final and we have to park excitement
NEVER before in the history of this competition have the two previous winners faced off in a final.
And if that’s not the sort of pairing that will finally provide a competitive decider, you’d have to wonder what will.
Na Piarsaigh maintained their formidable Munster record during the winter while Cuala coasted through Leinster once again, though the Limerick champions’ frailties were exposed again as they dodged a bullet against Slaughtneil. They’re weakened by the suspension of Thomas Grimes and Conor Boylan and that could be critical.
Ultimately, Cuala look to have the greater attacking threat to allow them to retain their crown.