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St Lachtain’s and Watergrasshill make the most of their day in Croker to take home All-Ireland titles

The Junior and Intermediate club hurling finals are the GAA with its nail polish scraped off, but the four teams served up a couple of crackers

Watergrasshill fans attempt to catch a match sliotar during the All-Ireland club IHC final at Croke Park against Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
Watergrasshill fans attempt to catch a match sliotar during the All-Ireland club IHC final at Croke Park against Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
Malachy Clerkin's picture
Malachy Clerkin
Sun Jan 12 2025 - 18:37

“Jeez, this is mad,” said Seán Desmond on the steps of the Hogan Stand. And it was. Standing there as the captain of Watergrasshill, he was ending a club season in which he had won two Cork titles, one Munster and an All-Ireland. Not alone that, he had buried the winner in this one, a goal in the fifth minute of injury-time that had finally shaken his team free of the attentions of Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry.

Mad doesn’t really cover it. The All-Ireland junior and intermediate finals always make their own feral music, stitching together four deeply unlikely strands of the same story. Watergrasshill and Russell Rovers from Cork, Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry from Galway, St Lachtain’s from Kilkenny – the odds against the four of them ever converging on the same place at the same time again are incalculable.

Watergrasshill's Sean Desmond celebrates winning with team physio David Lockyer after their win in the All-Ireland club IHC final against Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
Watergrasshill's Sean Desmond celebrates winning with team physio David Lockyer after their win in the All-Ireland club IHC final against Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho

Watergrasshill manager Eddie Enright said afterwards that this was their 150th collective session of the season, one which started with a league game against Midleton on March 9th, 2024. Each of the other three came up peddling the same kind of numbers. None of them set out to win an All-Ireland at Croke Park and yet here they all were, clawing and scratching like it was the biggest day of their lives.

“This is the gift of the GAA, isn’t it?” said Dave Dorgan, manager of the Russell Rovers side who lost the junior final to St Lachtain’s of Freshford. “That this opens up for a small club to be able to come out and play in the arena that is Croke Park. It makes no sense from a financial perspective from them to open up Croke Park for us today. It’s purely to give back to the clubs and give them the opportunity.”

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These days are the GAA with its nail polish scraped off. Next weekend, the senior club finals will be dripping with high-profile intercounty talent. The Canavan brothers taking on Con O’Callaghan and Mick Fitzsimons in the football. Donal Burke and Liam Rushe facing off against Jack O’Connor and Daniel Kearney in the hurling. You don’t make it to the biggest club day of the year these days without a sprinkling of the game’s elite.

The junior and intermediate finals are a different story. Darren Brennan was man of the match for St Lachtain’s in the opener – he was Eoin Murphy’s understudy as Kilkenny goalkeeper for most of the 2010s. Ciarán Sheehan was at full-forward for Russell Rovers – he was a top-class footballer for Cork and has an Aussie Rules career behind him too. Shane Moloney scored a famous injury-time point for Galway to beat Tipperary in an All-Ireland semi-final in 2017 and Paul Killeen had his days in maroon too.

St Lachtain's celebrate winning the All-Ireland club JHC final against Russell Rovers. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
St Lachtain's celebrate winning the All-Ireland club JHC final against Russell Rovers. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho

But mostly, the players on show here were turning out in Croke Park for the first time. And, in all likelihood, the last. They weren’t bad hurlers – they’re the best of their grade, in fact. They just didn’t do everything as crisply as the Croke Park stage usually demands. They didn’t always kill the ball first time. They didn’t always see the man in space. They didn’t always take the right option.

And it made for a couple of cracking games. Perfection is overrated.

St Lachtain’s took the opener with the help of a first-half Shane Donnelly goal that Russell Rovers were never able to match. With 15 minutes to go, the Freshford side were seven points up and making a mockery of the fact that their community has been basically snowed in for the past week, preventing them from being able to train.

But Russell Rovers, who had Donal Óg Cusack as a selector, kept chipping away. By the time we were heading into injury-time, the gap was down to three. Brennan pulled off a late save to keep it that way though and when St Lachtain’s got a late free inside their own half, he came up and nailed his first ever point in Croke Park to earn them a 1-18 to 0-16 victory.

Cathal Hickey of St Lachtain's is challenged by Mark O’Dwyer of Russell Rovers during the All-Ireland club JHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho
Cathal Hickey of St Lachtain's is challenged by Mark O’Dwyer of Russell Rovers during the All-Ireland club JHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Tom Maher/Inpho

“It was unbelievable,” Brennan said. “Actually, when I went out, Brian Kennedy (St Lachtain’s centre-back) was telling me to go back into the goal but I told him I was having that. There was no way I was letting him have it! I knew I’d have the distance and I wanted to put the ball dead so I went hell for leather at it.”

The second game turned into a thundering, riotous classic by the end. Watergrasshill looked to have it in their pocket in the first half, overcoming a slow start to rattle up a 1-8 to 0-7 lead by the break.

But Moloney took complete control of the game after the restart, scoring Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry’s first six points of the half by himself. And when he picked up a knock and faded from the game, Ben Moran took over and whistled over four of his own. By the fifth minute of injury-time, the sides were level and it looked like extra-time. Desmond had other ideas though, running onto a mix-up under a high ball and nailing his finish to win the All-Ireland.

Dream stuff. Mad stuff. Perfect for the day that was in it.

All-Ireland Junior Club Hurling final - St Lachtain’s (Kilkenny) 1-18 Russell Rovers (Cork) 0-16

St Lachtain’s: Darren Brennan (0-1, free); Simon Rafter, Criomhthann Bergin, Shane Dawson; Pádraig Donnelly, Brian Kennedy (0-1), Cathal Hickey (0-2); Brendan Quinn (0-1), Mark Donnelly (0-1); Ally Rafter (0-3), Paddy Killeen (0-1), Cathal O’Leary (0-1); Shane Donnelly (1-1), James Maher (0-2), Liam Hickey (0-3, 0-1 free, 0-1 sideline) Subs: Darragh Maher (0-1) for O’Leary, 51 mins; John Fitzpatrick for Maher, 52 mins; Cian Dawson for S Donnelly, 57 mins; Jerry Bergin for Rafter, 64 mins.

Russell Rovers: Ross Walsh; Eoghan O’Sullivan, Pierce Cummins, Kevin Tattan; Fintan Murray (0-1), Paul Lane, James Kennefick (0-1); Kieran Walsh, Ruairí Cummins; Luke Duggan Murray (0-2), Kevin Moynihan (0-1), Dan Ruddy; Brian Hartnett, Ciarán Sheehan (0-1), Josh Beausang (0-8, 0-6 frees, 0-1 65). Subs: Mark O’Dwyer (0-1) for Lane, 28 mins; Jack McGrath (0-1) for Ruddy, half-time; Kevin O’Brien for Moynihan, 57 mins.

Referee: Peter Owens (Down)

All-Ireland Intermediate Club Hurling Final - Watergrasshill (Cork) 2-15 Tynagh/AbbeyDuniry (Galway) 0-18

Watergrasshill: Aiden Foley; Shane Field, Dylan McCarthy, Ian O’Callaghan; Aaron Spriggs, Daire O’Leary, Kevin O’Neill; Anthony Cronin (0-1), Shane O’Regan; Ciarán O’Leary, Seán Desmond (1-3), Liam Foley; Brendan Lehane (0-1), Adam Murphy (1-8, 0-2 free, 0-1 65), Pádraig O’Leary (0-1). Subs: Dylan Roche (0-1) for Foley (46), Patrick Cronin for Spriggs (49), James McCarthy for O’Leary (60).

Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry: Brendan Lynch; Garry McHugo, Micheál Power, John Whelan; Shane Fitzpatrick, David Jordan (0-1), Kevin Moloney (0-1); Shane Moloney (0-10, 0-4 frees, 0-1 sideline), Paul Killeen (0-1); Ben Moran (0-4, 0-2 free), Johnny Conroy, Niall Moloney (0-1); Pádraig Breheny, John Dervan, Conor Jordan. Subs: Patrick McHugo for Power (blood) 30-31 mins; Niall Quirke for Jordan, 53 mins.

Referee: Colm McDonald (Antrim).