“I felt every emotion in half an hour of hurling"

It was a result that said much about the DNA of Coill Dubh hurling club. They’ve never had the biggest numbers in their group but the old saying about it not being about the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog comes to the fore.

Coill Dubh are one of these teams that never know when they are beaten. They lose games, of course they do, but they almost always go down swinging.

That’s why even when Celbridge went ten points ahead early in the second half of their UPMC Senior Hurling Championship, you still couldn’t fully discount Coill Dubh.

One of their most experienced and key players, Johnny Byrne, said it was a rollercoster of emotions through the second half.

“I felt every emotion in half an hour of hurling there. We had slow periods there and it took us about ten minutes to get into the game. We got a goal to claw us back into the game but Celbridge pushed off hard and fast. They were putting balls into the wing pockets and their lads were winning them and putting them over,” he said.

Nippy players like James Dolan, Andy McNiffe and Michael Owens were causing the Coill Dubh backline all kinds of problems through the first half and the early stages of the second half but Byrne said the defenders really upped their game.

“Our backs went one to one then and literally said we have to stop them. They stopped their men then, I know they leaked a few goals then but they came back and our backs led from the front, so I’ll give our backs huge credit there,” he said.

At ten points down, the experience of the Coill Dubh shone through and although Byrne listed off a number of his team-mates who helped haul the team back into the game, he was hugely important in doing so too.

“We witnessed an All-Ireland Final this year where Tipperary came back and showed something. We knew we had the wind and we spoke about that inside. We just trusted the lads, Colm Gordon inside is a block for only a young man and he’ll fight for every ball. Declan got a goal then when a free dropped in and was batted down. We got the luck of the breaks then sometimes. I suppose with the experience there of Mark Grace, Declan Flaherty, Mark Delaney, Dylan Brereton, they led from the front there today,” said Byrne.

The Coill Dubh squad have put in a massive effort all season. Training began before Christmas and after picking up a Division 1 league title along the way, a win like this is another big reward for all their work.

“The effort from lads all year has been huge. The league went well and we’ve been building from that point. We had to get a few of the old bodies back right. I was suffering, Mark Grace had a niggle, Declan had a niggle, we had to get them right before we knew we could test anything,” said Byrne.

The win means Coill Dubh will go on face six-in-row champions Naas in the semi-finals. They will be considered underdogs by pretty much every neutral onlooker but that won’t bother Coill Dubh. In fact, it might just suit them.

“We’re underdogs everywhere we go, no matter what,” said Byrne.

“Naas are an outfit and a half. All we can do is try go out and build and represent Kildare hurling, no matter what club you are that’s what you try and do and then the lucky lads get to wear the Kildare jersey at the end of the year. We are all building towards something.

“But yeah, it would be nice to pip them,” he smiled.