Devine basks in Ballymachugh's breakthrough
November 27, 2011With no disrespect to Mullahoran, Ballymachugh's capture of their first Cavan SHC title last September was a welcome boost for Cavan hurling.
In a year when the county was forced to withdraw from all senior hurling competitions due to a lack of interest and numbers, Ballymachugh's achievement in ending Mullahoran's remarkable 21-year reign as county champions was both refreshing and historic.
Having trailed by 0-2 to 1-3 at half-time, Ballymachugh rallied in the second half - scoring three goals inside the opening nine minutes - to run out impressive 4-8 to 1-6 winners and one man who took great satisfaction from the breakthrough success was veteran midfielder Brendan Devine, who hails from the Westmeath hurling stronghold of Castlepollard.
"It's good for the game and fantastic for the club," he enthuses.
"Cavan hurling got a lot of negative press this year and it needed a good news story like this. Competition is a healthy thing and I'm sure Mullahoran would be the first to admit that. They had been the dominant force for over 20 years and it wasn't good for the game as a whole."
The 39-year-old, who joined Ballymachugh after moving to the area five years ago, says the plight of Cavan hurling will only improve when more clubs come on stream.
"The only way things will improve is if there are more clubs playing the game. There are only three teams in the senior championship - Mullahoran, Woodford Gaels from Ballyconnell and ourselves - and it's very hard for Cavan hurling won't improve while that's the case," says Brendan, whose nine-year-old son Peter plays underage hurling with the south Cavan club.
"There are a lot of good hurling people in the county, but the tradition simply isn't there and hurling has always played second fiddle to football. When any decent hurler comes to live in the county, their only option is to play with Mullahoran but maybe things will change now that their dominance has been broken."
Under the management of Brendan Sweeney, who is also the club chairman and whose selectors were Tom Jenkins and Paddy Baxter, Ballymachugh defeated Woodford Gaels in the semi-final to qualify for a final meeting with Mullahoran in Kingspan Breffni Park.
The champions were installed as hot favourites to rack up their 22nd consecutive title, but having taken them to a replay in the league final a few weeks earlier, Ballymachugh were not without hope and they produced a magnificent second half performance to cause a major upset.
Playing against a strong breeze in the first half, the challengers were slow to settle and trailed by 0-0 to 1-2 after just six minutes. But they outscored their opponents by 0-2 to 0-1 in the remainder of a low-scoring first half to leave themselves just four points adrift with wind advantage to come.
Within nine minutes of the restart, Brendan Sweeney's underdogs had turned the game on its head thanks to quick-fire goals from Lonan McKenna, Alan Donohue and Padraig Sheridan. With Stephen Harten in fine form from placed balls, Ballymachugh pushed on and Harten put the seal on a famous victory with a fourth goal late on.
Having played in five Westmeath SHC finals with Castlepollard - which is just nine miles from Ballymachugh - Brendan was shocked at the lack of interest in the Cavan decider outside of the competing clubs.
"The difference regards hype and coverage in the local media is extraordinary. In Westmeath, there is huge interest in the senior hurling final every year. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Cavan, but as I said, the tradition isn't there. It's a football county at the end of the day."
As a member of the Cavan senior hurling team for the past three years, Brendan was saddened by the county's withdrawal from all competitions for the foreseeable future. The decision was taken after the Breffni men were forced to concede a walkover to Fermanagh in this year's Lory Meagher Cup after just seven players turned up for training the previous week. It's estimated that management had a pool of just 60 hurlers to work from.
"The team fell apart this year - there is no other way of putting it," he says.
"Commitment was a big problem. Twelve regulars left the panel, meaning you were left with only three of last year's starting team. It was disappointing because we had been competitive in 2010. Longford only beat us by four points before going on to win the Lory Meagher Cup. There are some tasty hurlers in Cavan, but many of them are not willing to commit."
Devine welcomes the appointment of Waterford native Eoin Morrissey as a new Hurling Development Officer for Cavan who will oversee the county board's five-year development plan.
"The county board needs to promote the game more and to try and build it up again. Eoin Morrissey is basically starting from scratch and I wish him well," he says.
A member of a well-known Castlepollard hurling family, Brendan's brothers Alfie, Ollie, Noel, Donal, Sean, Frank, Seamus and the late Martin have all hurled for the 14-time Westmeath senior hurling champions. He won SHC medals with 'Pollard in 1995, '97 and 2003 before joining Ballymachugh in 2006. He captained Westmeath at minor level and also skippered Sligo IT during his college days.
Brendan is employed by the Flood Group as a Production Manager with their pre-cast concrete division. Based in Oldcastle, Co. Meath, the Flood Group has been in business since 1938, having started out extracting aggregate and producing readymix concrete and concrete blocks.
In 1979 Flood Flooring was established to market precast products and through ongoing research and development and the employment of competent staff throughout the company, it is now recognised as the country's largest producer of precast flooring.
Since its introduction to the precast market nearly 30 years ago, the company has expanded its production and sales of prestressed wideslab flooring to 12000m2 per week. Through this expansion Flood Flooring now have in addition to the head office and production facility in Oldcastle a design office in Rathfarnham, Dublin and a UK office based in Birmingham.
The Ballymachugh team which made history by winning its first Cavan SHC title was: P Martin; A Hawe, P Baxter, J Smith; J Halton, K Smith, D O'Reilly; B Devine (0-1), K O'Reilly (0-1); A Baxter, A Donohue (1-0), S Harten (1-4); L McKenna (1-0), P Sheridan (1-0), L Buchanan (0-2). Subs: Kieran Goldrick, J Leahy and Killian Goldrick. Tweet
