‘The ground is hard and the sun is up’

Seamus O’Neill

GLENEALY Chairman Seamus O’Neill says that getting back to the level of one of the best year’s ever in the club has been tricky but that with the ground hard underfoot, the sun high in the sky and the hurling championship about to begin, things just don’t get any better.

‘Going into last year we were rebuilding, new management, a good few young lads coming in so we kind of didn’t know which way we would be. Garry came in with a bit of a plan and we stuck to it as the year went on and as it turned out it was one of the best years we ever had,’ he said.

‘We were fierce unlucky in the Leinster final, we were kind of hard done by the referee, but, look, that’s the way it goes.

‘For this year we are going back in to it and it’s kind of hard, it’s hard to go back to that, now you’re miles away from that and everybody is looking at you. We’re no strangers to being there, we’ve been around the top couple of teams for the last 15 or 20 years. For a lot of the young lads this will be new ground for them, so they’re going in as favourites – not making us favourites – but most people would probably be keeping an eye on us, so we’ll have to see how that goes and if Garry can get that back into the lads,’ he added.

Preparations for the hurling championship in Wicklow can be difficult with a lack of games and players having other outlets and responsibilities. O’Neill says being a hurling club is a help in that regard.

‘It is (hard to prepare given the lack of games), but we’re kind of, I know some of our lads play football, but we are kind of unique in that we only play hurling, so we’ve only to worry about that. You see other clubs and they have football and other stuff. Now, we have a good few lads playing football, but we do have a little bit more of a hold on our lads because of that,’ he said.

Glenealy clashed with Carnew Emmets in the Senior league final a few weeks back with the Wexford border side coming out on top of what was an experimental Glenealy side. Seamus O’Neill says there’s no better place to test a young lad than in the lion’s den in Carnew.

‘We did alright. It’s good experience to go up to Carnew and see what it’s like, it’s kind of like going into the lion’s den. It was nice to see what way they reacted. You’d learn a lot about a young lad by putting him into that environment. It was kind of forced on us too. We have a lot of injuries coming into this championship. I think we were 10 lads down from the Leinster final that day in Carnew,’ he said.

And so to the championship. Like most hurling people in the county O’Neill sees it as a very open championship.

‘Bray are good. We’ve seen this before, they kind of got caught on the hop last year and I think they will come back very strong. Last year. Probably St Pat’s gave us the best game and then you can never write off Carnew. They’re very up for it this year and last year people were writing us off and you see where we came from and there’s nothing stopping them doing the same. Kiltegan will be there as well, if they get themselves organised,’ he said.

‘The biggest thing that affects us is the players losing the status because you can’t look at a young lad because if you do he’s gone and he won’t get any hurling. So, it’s going to be tight on numbers.

‘But the ground is hard and the sun is up and it doesn’t get any better than that,’ he added.