O’Loughlin Gaels prevail as All-Ireland club semi-finals produce two of the year’s best games

Winter hurling, eh?

On the last weekend of the year on which sane people would consider venturing out for a game, the All-Ireland club semi-finals served up two of the most thrilling games of 2023 to top it all off.

After the operatic madness of St Thomas’s penalty shoot-out win over Ballygunner on Saturday night, O’Loughlin Gaels and Cushendall danced a frenzied tango in Navan on Sunday. Glorious insanity, the lot of it.

In the end, the Kilkenny champions advanced to meet the Galway kingpins in Croke Park on January 23rd.

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O’Loughlin Gaels emerged 1-17 to 1-16 winners against Cushendall, overturning an early eight-point deficit against the Antrim champions and finding a way out of the mousetrap yet again.

The experience of already winning two huge games in this campaign by a single point in injury-time clearly stood to them – they needed every bit of their nous and experience against a Cushendall side that gave them the full shock-and-awe treatment from the start.

[ Great survivors O’Loughlin Gaels secure yet another one-point victory to reach All-Ireland final ]

“We wanted to play against the wind in the first half,” said O’Loughlin’s manager Brian Hogan.

“Normally these matches take about five-10 minutes to settle into a pattern. There was a decent wind, we made a few adjustments before the start – we wanted to isolate Luke [Hogan] on the edge of the square, bring a couple of bodies out. And they just came out of the blocks so quick. We just didn’t deal with the runners.

“We had no answer to them for the first 15 minutes. There was a huge sense of helplessness on the sideline. You’ve given the instructions, you’ve spoken about it all week and then they come out and hit you with 1-5. Credit to the players, it is them that turned it around. We had very little input at that stage. They got a couple of points, got the scoreboard ticking over.

“We spoke at half-time and said, ‘Look, they’ve thrown the kitchen sink at us, with the wind, and we’re only a single score behind’. We’ve been in that position before, we knew what we needed to do. We did it for the opening bit of the second half – we got three points in a row, started moving. But credit to Cushendall, they came back at us and it was nip and tuck all the way from there.”

In the end, O’Loughlin’s brightest stars shone for them. Captain Mark Bergin was immense throughout, keeping them in touch after the early barrage from Cushendall left them eight points down after 10 minutes. He ended the day with nine points, four of them from play.

He was their leading scorer as well the only other time they played in an All-Ireland final, back in 2012. They got trounced by Clarinbridge in the end that day. He knows better than anyone how much it took to get back to this point.

“It’s hard to put it into words,” Bergin said. “We’re into an All-Ireland club final the middle of January. It’s coming up to Christmas – this is what dreams are made of. I’m just so so happy to be part of it all. I’m so so happy to be sharing a dressing room with that group of players and the management team, it’s just been unbelievable all year. I’m just delighted now that we’re into a club final . . . the last two in Ireland.

“It did look shaky, to be honest. We were under pressure but we didn’t panic and we plotted our way back into the game. We weren’t expecting anything soft coming up here to Navan. Cushendall are a serious team. They have an inspirational leader in Neil McManus. I’ve nothing but the utmost respect for them as a club.”

Elsewhere, Dicksboro made it a banner day for Kilkenny clubs by claiming the All-Ireland club camogie title in Croke Park. They scuppered the three-in-a-row bid of Galway club Sarsfields with a 0-18 to 1-11 victory, ripping up the formbook in the process.

Despite coming in as outsiders, they held champions Sarsfields scoreless for the last 20 minutes and stretched clear thanks to nine points from player of the match Aoife Prendergast.

“It’s actually beyond a dream,” Prendergast said afterwards. “When you’re a young girl growing up, you dream of winning a county championship. We’re after winning a Leinster and now an All-Ireland.

“Just looking down at my jersey and seeing that it’s a club jersey. It’s a great honour to play for your county but to play for your club in Croke Park, it’s beyond a dream. I actually think I’m still asleep or something. I don’t know, it’s unbelievable.”

It rounded off a weekend of club finals in both camogie and women’s football. Kerry club Clanmaurice won the intermediate camogie title by beating Meath club Na Fianna by 10-7 to 0-7, a victory notable for the fact that they only had a squad of 17 players to bring with them to Croke Park.

In football, Kilkerrin-Clonberne were crowned All-Ireland champions for the third year in a row with a 0-18 to 1-9 win over Ballymacarbry on Saturday. They’re only the second club ever to complete a hat-trick of successive titles, after Ballymacarbry themselves.

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