Celtic Challenge title hints at a bright future for hurlers

SUCCESS in the Celtic Challenge Minor Championship last week will be seen as having the potential to sustain the progress that has been enjoyed by Tyrone at all levels of hurling during recent years.

It has been an impressive decade for the Red Hands in the sport. From Lory Meagher and Nickey Rackard Cup triumphs, to their participation in Division Two of the National League and the Christy Ring Cup, the past few seasons have been ones to remember.

Now the county’s hurlers have a new group of players to look towards. The Minors who defeated Sligo last Saturday contain players from half a dozen different clubs, and will be hoping to make their mark as they graduate to U-20 and perhaps senior level in the future.

Shea Munroe won the ‘Best and Fairest Award following Saturday’s six point victory. His three goals proved crucial to the win, but he was keen to stress the important contributions of players throughout the team.

“It feels brilliant to have won this title, even though I was only here for the past few weeks,” said the Carrickmore Eire Og player.

“I was part of the football panel so it didn’t work out in terms of the commitment. The whole panel has shown some commitment and coming into this final today we knew that everybody was ready for whatever came our way. To have beaten Westmeath in the semi-final and now Sligo in the final was a great way to win. Everybody says the north isn’t a great standard of hurling, but we like showing how good that we actually are.

“It’s great to have beaten teams like Westmeath and Sligo. Being part of the team is great because there are players from so many different clubs. There’s a good spread of players, we could nearly field a second time.

“Normally, it’s just ourselves from Carrickmore and Dungannon who have the most of the players. But now you see all the other players coming through which is brilliant.”

Tyrone’s success at this level of hurling mirrors the progress of a different generation of hurlers from the county who also won All-Irelnd Minor titles. That progress ironically began with a final defeat to Sligo at Croke Park in 1986.

The task now will be to build on the momentum of this triumph and team manager, Chris Cross, has no doubt about the ability of the team to continue making strides.

“There’s a lot of good work going on at club level in Tyrone. We were using the facilities up at Garvaghey and they bought into it from the very start,” he said.

“Omagh, Strabane and Fintona have all start going, you have a club in Benburb and Cillian Early from there was the captain and lifted the Cup.

“That work is all coming to fruition now. It started a number of years ago, and we’re now drawing from Omagh, Fintona, Strabane and Benburb, something which hasn’t been done before. So that’s brilliant in itself.

” All those clubs can be proud todat because the work that they have done at youth level and underage has come to fruition and to get players up to that level. This competition is brilliant because it gives lads the chance to hurl in their county colours, and you’re graded out as fairly as possible. To have the quarter final, semi-final and then the final is absolutely brilliant.”

Now the task for Chris Cross and all those involved with underage hurling in the Red Hand county will be to ensure that the players on this team reach their potential at both club and county level during the coming years.