Hurling & Camogie

Slaughtneil boss Michael McShane hopes hurlers can complete hat-trick by reaching All-Ireland final

Slaughtneil captain Chrissy McKaigue leads the celebrations after the club's historic Ulster Club SHC success last October. Tomorrow, they hope to advance to an All-Ireland final when they take on Cuala. Picture by Seamus Loughran
Slaughtneil captain Chrissy McKaigue leads the celebrations after the club's historic Ulster Club SHC success last October. Tomorrow, they hope to advance to an All-Ireland final when they take on Cuala. Picture by Seamus Loughran

AIB All-Ireland Club Senior Hurling Championship

TWO down, one to go – and Michael McShane insists the success of Slaughtneil’s footballers and camogs has been a “huge inspiration” to his hurlers as they prepare for tomorrow’s All-Ireland Club semi-final showdown with Cuala.

Last November the south Derry club completed an unprecedented clean sweep in Ulster when they landed provincial titles in all codes, and are now eyeing up an All-Ireland hat-trick.

At the end of January Slaughtneil’s camogs beat Munster champions Burgess Duharra to reach the All-Ireland decider, with the footballers following suit a fortnight ago in despatching Dublin’s fancied St Vincent’s.

Tomorrow it is the turn of the hurlers and, rather than feeling any extra pressure at being the last of the three to take the stage, McShane hopes his men can tap into the confidence that is flowing through the club.

“We were all praying the footballers and the camogs would win because winning’s a great habit and it has given us all a great momentum at the club,” said the Ballycastle man, who will call on several of the dual players who lined out for the footballers in Newry.

“Those victories give us huge inspiration. If the footballers had lost that game they’d have been down in the dumps, you’d maybe be looking at the next three or four days trying to get them picked up again but we didn’t have that problem.

“We were training the next day and the guys who had played on the Saturday wanted to train on the Sunday morning, we had to tell them to take a few days rest.

“The biggest problem we have at the minute is holding the guys back and keeping them fresh. They just love being out on the pitch playing and every night at training they’re wanting to do more.

“They’re just chomping at the bit – they’re on the crest of the highest wave you could ever imagine because what’s happening in Slaughtneil at the minute is unprecedented.”

Slaughtneil became the first Derry club to win the Ulster hurling title when they toppled 2012 All-Ireland champions Loughgiel at the Athletic Grounds back in October, and they return to the scene of that famous victory tomorrow to face Cuala.

Just as when they took the field against Loughgiel, Slaughtneil will start as big underdogs against Mattie Kenny’s Leinster kingpins, with odds of 11/2 readily available.

That is not untypical for Ulster clubs heading into the All-Ireland series, and McShane is confident his men can cause another shock in Armagh.

“The bookies seem to think we have no chance and that we’d be better off not turning up,” smiles McShane, who says he has “two or three” players carrying knocks ahead of the meeting with the dangerous Dubs.

“It’s been a long time from the Loughgiel game, certainly, but a lot of our hurling panel were involved in the football and that ran right through to December so we had to let them get on with that.

“The rest of the lads had a bit of a rest and so we only really got back at it at from the start of the year. Since then we’ve got as much hurling done as you could ever want to get done.

“We’ve played three challenge games but we’re blessed with the fact that our in-house games are very competitive and of a very high intensity, so we’ve obviously had a lot of those games.

“Bookies’ odds are only an opinion and their know-how tells them we have no chance. We pay no attention to that, we just focus on ourselves.

“The footballers were fairly big outsiders going into their game and you see what they did. They upset the odds so whatever the bookies want to do they can do.

“Hopefully we’ll wipe their eye on Saturday by getting a victory.”