2024 Premier Intermediate Hurling Championship

As I mentioned earlier in the thread I've family connections in The Hill, my nephew and nieces all play underage for them, so me and my gang went up with their cousins to Dublin on Sunday morning to support The Hill. I'm glad we did.

A wonderful occasion, the GAA at its rawest and best. The game itself was some spectacle, some fantastic high fielding, classy scores and teak tough tacking. Proper championship hurling.

I thought The Hill were the better balanced team and deserved their victory. TAD and Shane Maloney in particular threw the kitchen sink at the Hill, the Hill wobbled and wobbled badly but crucially did not fall over. A serious display of courage and workrate.

I've watched the Hill on 7 of their 9 championship games this year and this was probably the poorest I've seen them, In saying that TAD were well drilled and Mattie Kenny had the Hill mentors scratching their heads for 20 mins in the 2cd half wondering how to stop Maloney.
We must remember as well that Mick O Driscoll is the Hills big name man marker, with him injured they were short a big unit to follow Maloney and probably spent most of the 2cd half contemplating switching Daire O Leary or Kevin O Neill on him.

The Hill full backline was immense and for me Shane Field was my man of the match. Cronin in midfield put in a fair shift and up front the 6 forwards worked like demons. Murphy was very good without hitting the heights of previous games and Desmond had a tough second half before bursting to life again in injury time. His finish for the goal was ice cool, a proper poacher.

The celebrations in the stand afterwards were incredible. Men and women crying, sliothers getting fired into the crowd, kids getting lifted onto the pitch, absolute magic stuff.

I ventured up to the Hill again yesterday for a few hours, met some of my old foes and got to meet some of the lads who played the day before. Their a good bunch to be fair. Got introduced to Eddie Enright and have to say he's an absolute gentleman. It was great to see guys from a few other East Cork and City clubs up there sampling the occasion as well.

Talking to them up there yesterday a lot of them commenting on how tough TAD were but also mentioning both Carrigaline and Castlemartyr as well as teams who gave them awful bother this year. I'm told as a club they learned an awful lot from the transfer saga a few years ago and are placing a big emphasis on discipline within the club. I thought it at the time and I think it even more after this weekend but that transfer should never have been allowed occur without O Regan sitting out 96 weeks. It was a sham of a transfer but the Hill used that as fuel to drive them on. They learned a lot from all those draws as well. The importance of score difference being the most important and that's why they never gave up against Carrigaline the first day. As I was told yesterday, a score difference of -10 after 1 game could finish you, a score difference of -5 might not.

Between Castlelyons getting to the final last year and the Hill winning it this year, there should be and probably will be 8 or 9 clubs in Cork thinking that could be us next January. Cork club hurling is in its strongest place for 20 years.

Come August, Courceys, Blarney and Bride Rovers will be going all out to bury the All Ireland champions from the Hill. It's going to be great viewing.
 
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