The Durrow connection with Ballinamere's long and arduous road towards the promised land

THERE are a myriad of reasons why Ballinamere have emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship: many rooted deep in the mists of history, some much more recent and pivotal than any event decades ago.

Their emergence as a powerful juggernaut has been the single biggest development in the Offaly hurling world in recent years and their achievement in reaching Sunday's final against Kilcormac-Killoughey is a huge one.

It has been coming for a few years but how did it all happen for Ballinamere?

Firstly, and primarily, it has happened because of a group of young kids growing up on a short stretch of the road in Durrow, the cumulative effect of them driving each other on and the path they beat up to Durrow GAA pitch throughout their national and secondary school years.

Much is being made of the fact that nine of the players who will start in Sunday's final are Durrow members, granted annual County Board permission to hurl with Ballinamere. These are goalkeeper Mark Troy, full back Ciaran Burke, wing backs Jack Fogarty and Sam Bourke, centre half back Ross Ravenhill, midfielder Kevin McDermott, wing forward Dan Ravenhill, centre half forward Dan Bourke and full forward Brian Duignan.

Troy, Burke, the two Bourke's, the two Ravenhill's and Brian Duignan were all on the Offaly senior hurling panel this year with Troy, Burke, Dan Bourke and Duignan all starting in the Joe McDonagh Cup final win over Laois, and Sam Bourke coming on as a sub. Dan Bourke was the captain of Offaly U-20 hurlers and had a sensational year as he led the attack spectacularly on their way to provincial and All-Ireland glory. Dan Ravenhill would have had a much more central part only for injury. Fogarty has played minor hurling for Offaly and while Kevin McDermott may be better known as a footballer and was on the Offaly senior football panel this year, he has played minor and U-21 hurling for Offaly as well.

Most of them grew up within a mile or two of each other on a short link road between Durrow GAA field heading towards the Ballinamere end of Tullamore parish and the way they have emerged as hurlers has been remarkable.

Duignan and Troy were sons of former Offaly stars, Michael Duignan and Jim Troy and while Durrow is very much traditional football territory, they were always likely to follow their father's passions and they brought some of their childhood friends, and a slightly younger generation, into a magical web.

It is entirely possible that seven of that nine will play in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship next year – Troy, Burke, Dan Bourke and Brian Duignan are odds on to make the starting line-up, Dan Ravenhill will be very close if his injury problems don't resurface and Ross Ravenhill and Sam Bourke will fight very hard for their place. A phone call from Johnny Kelly to Kevin McDermott can't be ruled out considering his form in the group stages but Declan Kelly or Mickey Harte is certain to ring him and it is some return from that area.

The influence that the three amigos, Ciaran Burke, Brian Duignan and Ross Ravenhill had on their slightly younger brethren, Mark Troy, Sam and Dan Bourke and Dan Ravenhill, along with others, was immense.

Luck played a part in this whole story as three Offaly hurlers from the south of the county set up home in the area with Shinrone's Pat Cleary, a goalscoring hero in the 1985 All-Ireland final win over Galway, moving into the Ballinamere end – his son Ronan missed the semi-final through injury and the call on whether to start him or Eoin Boland at corner back for the final is the only dilemma facing team management. Another son, Barry Cleary is also a sub.

Jim Troy, sub goalkeeper for Offaly in the All-Ireland senior hurling final win in 1981 and outstanding in 1985 and 1994, moved into Durrow from Lusmagh after marrying Mary Delaney – Mark Troy has been following in his goalkeeping footsteps and his magnificent distribution, his ultra reliability is a huge part of Ballinamere's success.

Banagher man, Michael Duignan moved into Durrow when him and his late wife Edel decided to come back to Offaly from Naas – eldest son Sean won senior B and intermediate hurling medals with Ballinamere in the late 2010s, and played senior for them but didn't have the same appetite as Brian and has drifted off the senior scene. Brian, however, has emerged as one of Offaly's top hurlers, a huge performer for Ballinamere and one of the most important players in this final.

Cleary, Troy and Duignan all got involved in coaching underage teams, spectacular success followed as the underage club Ballinamere-Durrow won minor and U-21 hurling titles – back to back minors in 2016 and '17, U-21 hurling in 2019. Everything has mushroomed from here.

Those successes also saw Ballinamere transition out of the lower grades, winning intermediate hurling in 2017, senior “B” a year later to get into the top flight. Burke played in 2017, followed by Duignan and Ross Ravenhill in 2018 and with the younger contingent following quickly in their footsteps, it became crystal clear that something extraordinary was taking place.

The Durrow element has to be acknowledged, it adds greatly to the intrigue of it all but it must not be overplayed to the extent that it diminishes Ballinamere's influence – it must not be used a stick to beat Ballinamere with or to insult them. They are the hurling end of that wide area, great promoters of the ancient game and Ballinamere GAA Club have been the driving force of what is happening. Durrow is traditional football territory and its officers and members did not have a “Road to Damascus” moment where they suddenly saw the potential in hurling and what could be achieved.

Chance had more to do with in terms of the people that moved into the area, the parents they had and the friendships they struck up in their earliest years. Of the nine men named above, only the Ravenhill's and Kevin McDermott come from ancient Durrow lineage.

Both names go way back. When Durrow were first represented at an Offaly GAA Convention in 1915, a Ravenhill, Paddy and a McDermott, also Paddy, were among their four delegates. Another Ravenhill, also Dan, was the first Durrow man to play senior football for Offaly in the 1920s, his brother Tom was entrenched in the club for decades. These names have continued to lead the way forward one generation after another. Ross's and Dan's father Stephen played football for them for years, Kevin's father Tom did the same and is also the current club chairman. The McDermott's and Ravenhill's are Durrow to their core – their pitch is named Pairc MacDiarmada after the McDermott's joined forces a few years ago to secure its naming rights and this family are absolutely synonymous with the GAA in the area.

The other six, however, all moved into the area and some are not natives of the county. Jack Fogarty's father Liam is a Killoughey man, born and reared in Ballincanty, three miles or so from Mountbolus, his mother Breeda, nee Jones, is a Limerick woman. Work brought the Bourke's and Burke's into Offaly, Durrow was chosen as their home and the GAA has yielded a spectacular dividend.

Incidentally, Liam Fogarty is a first cousin of an Offaly hurling defensive stalwart from the 1980s, Aidan Fogarty, St Rynagh's while Ross and Dan Ravenhill's mother Dolores is a Leonard from Kilcormac-Killoughey territory in Blueball.

Durrow has had a long and complicated GAA history. They won the Senior Football Championship in 1952 but only because of a bitter split in Tullamore and the decision of several of their players to switch allegiance to them. That co-incided with a messy split in Durrow, which occurred at the 1950 AGM, with two rival clubs, Durrow and St Columba's in existence for a spell. When the dust settled, Durrow disbanded and St Columba's remained as the standard bearers for decades.

They reverted to the Durrow name in 2006.

Throughout all of this, Durrow had an often fractious relationship with their near neighbours Ballinamere. They were like a volatile courting couple, they needed each other, split up, returned to each other's bosoms and eventually decided to commit for the wider benefit of their youth, the greater good of all.

They needed each other to field underage teams and did so under the umbrella of Ballinamere-Durrow minor club – sometimes, over the years, called Ballinamere-Durrow for hurling, Durrow-Ballinamere for football, which tells its own story.

And then you occasionally had their big town parish neighbours Tullamore dipping their oars in and it all made for a quite disturbed parish.

Where Durrow GAA Club deserve particular credit for Ballinamere's success story is their part in what looks like a final pooling of resources in 2006. At that stage, Ballinamere GAA disbanded their football club, Durrow got rid of their hurling team. Looking at it now, that may seem a trivial, no brainer decision but it was a huge step at the time.

In the late 1990s, early 2000s, Durrow had developed a strong hurling team. They won the Junior Hurling Championship in 2002 and some of their players began to make Offaly underage hurling teams. Stephen Weir played minor, U-21 and senior hurling for Offaly in the 2000s, Paddy Thornton played minor, Daniel Minnock played minor and U-21 hurling for Offaly.

Ballinamere were strong in football. They won junior football in 1998 and ran Tullamore close in the intermediate final in 1999.

It was a period of change for both clubs. There was a year or two where football went better in Ballinamere, hurling better in Durrow; they were threatening to surpass the other in their main code.

It was a very turbulent spell and the clubs were on war footing for a few years, missiles aimed across the fields.

There was a level of bad blood that could not be healthy for anyone involved. In 1994, Ballinamere and the then St Columba's had made an early attempt at unity, each disbanding their football and hurling teams to allow them to field together. Ballinamere went to the intermediate hurling final, losing out to Shamrocks in 1994 – In the Cunningham's and others, Durrow had some good hurlers at the time and Pat and Paul played in that final.

It lasted one year and ended in an acrimonious divorce, people hurt, tempers frayed and it took over a decade for it to fully heal.

The decision to end the arrangement was St Columba's and there was immediate repercussions. Four of their players sought transfers to Ballinamere, and St Columba's were asked by County Board secretary Christy Todd not to field a hurling team in 1995 but declined and entered junior. The transfers were ruled out as Tom McDermott said they hadn't received the required notice.

It reached farcical levels at times. In 2001, just five years before their final merger, Ballinamere came calling again, looking for nine St Columba's players to transfer. Paddy Thornton, Stephen Weir and Daniel Minnock were among that list and unsurprisingly, the County Board were never going to allow nine players to switch clubs, without agreement – even if one of Durrow's greatest gaels Brendan Ward was not County Board chairman, the requests would have been rejected.

Ballinamere proposed changing their name to Kilbride-Ballinamere-Durrow in a bid to facilitate the transfers – Kilbride is a townland in their area and the historic title of the parish. St Columba's objected to the use of the Durrow name in any other club and for a year, in 2001, Ballinamere were formally known as Ballinamere-Kilbride.

Ballinamere argued that some of the players wishing to transfer had only played a challenge game for St Columba's and this did not tie them down – there was no boundary between the clubs and the first club they played for would have tied them. The County Board ruled that it did.

Ballinamere, now with the Kilbride dropped, returned with more requests in 2002. Again they were rejected – Ballinamere pushed it to a vote at a full County Board meeting, calling for the Management Committee not to vote as they had recommended the refusal. Brendan Ward, who had opted out of chairing that Management Committee meeting, rejected this and the transfers were turned down on a 40-5 vote.

Ballinamere appealed to Leinster Council but it was ruled out of order as the appeals should have come from the individuals rather than the club.

In the midst of all this, there was an unseemly row between Ballinamere and Brendan Ward. In 2001, Ballinamere-Durrow lost to Coolderry in the minor hurling final. They had an excellent young team and were close to winning but there were some ugly incidents as they lost in O'Connor Park. It prompted Brendan Ward to hit out at them at the Bord na nOg AGM a few weeks later, saying he hoped never to see such behaviour repeated again.

Ballinamere took it like a tonne of bricks on the head with Ballinamere-Durrow demanding an apology at a County Board meeting, claiming they had been unfairly “singled out and maligned”. St Columba's immediately disassociated themselves from the demand and Ward, an old school chairman who was never one for backing away from confrontation when he needed to take something on, did not apologise, saying: “I want to assure Ballinamere, never will I apologise, never, because what happened was a disgrace”. When Ballinamere's delegates said it wasn't over, the late Durrow man replied: “I know, I expect another few letters.”

It is to the eternal credit of all the individuals involved at the time that they were able to mend and unite; to put their most tribal instincts to one side and do what was right for the young people in their areas – and while the memory of all that was still very fresh.

In 2005, they almost came together in a full amalgamation. They held simultaneous Extraordinary General Meetings where proposals to disband their clubs were voted on. Again, farce emerged. Durrow got the numbers required to disband their own club but fell short with the proposal to amalgamate with Ballinamere. Ballinamere were still in the midst of the debate when they received word of the Durrow decision and wisely decided not to proceed any further.

Lady luck smiled on the current generation that night. Had the Ballinamere vote been taken and they had backed the amalgamation but then been rejected, the scars may have taken years to heal – that happened with Ballinagar and Raheen most recently when Ballinagar voted in favour of amalgamation but Raheen fell five votes short of the majority needed.

In 2006, a compromise was agreed where both clubs retained their separate identity, Durrow playing football only, Ballinamere hurling and their players getting annual permission to play with the other in the other code. Ballinamere chairman Vincent Molloy told the County Board at the time that they had struck the deal “to survive really”.

Throughout all that and after, there has also been stand-offs with Tullamore. When the 1994 arrangement was agreed, Tullamore chairman, former GAA president John Dowling, argued that players from both areas should have the option of playing with them. He was quickly told where to go by Ballinamere and St Columba's delegates.

Over the years, Ballinamere have occasionally played players from Tullamore town – something that is not illegal in anyway but had drawn plenty of comment from some in the Tullamore club without formal objections. Some of these moved back to Tullamore over the years, including prominent players. On the other side of this coin, Durrow have seen players from their area switch to Tullamore, and play key roles on some of their footballing successes in the 2000s and 2010s.

In 2007, Ballinamere were furious when the County Board sanctioned the transfers of some of their young players to Tullamore.

In 2010, Tullamore alleged that six of their players had played illegally with Ballinamere-Durrow that year.

Eight young players sought a move from Ballinamere to Tullamore in 2013 with just one granted and the remainder rejected. Another one later got his move but the mood was so poisonous that Tullamore chairman Fergal McKeown made an impassioned plea for an end to hostilities, saying he had been at a match in Durrow the previous Sunday and “you could cut the atmosphere with a knife”.

It ended with a comprehensive parish agreement signed off on later that year, though Tullamore sought to end this in 2015 when Ballinamere-Durrow entered into an U-21 hurling amalgamation with Clara and Brosna Gaels as St David's. Tullamore argued that under the terms of the agreement, they should cater for Ballinamere-Durrow players if they couldn't field at any underage grades.

Thankfully, however, it has all since drifted off the agenda and there have been very few public cases of renewed hostilities in recent years.

The rows between Durrow, Ballinamere and Tullamore are no different than many parishes and are instead typical of several of them.

And there have also been close links between Tullamore and both Ballinamere and Durrow, especially in the pre-1989 days when players from a junior club were allowed field with a senior club in their parish. This has seen both Ballinamere and Durrow members feature on successful Tullamore senior football and hurling teams and there were times when they were joined at the hips.

Ballinamere is one of those anomalies in Offaly, a hurling stronghold in wider area where football is generally king. Killeigh is another and in Ballinamere's case, its affinity with hurling can be traced deep into lore.

In the GAA in general, hurling has never really expanded into areas where it did not have a tradition prior to its 1884 formation. This basically consisted of the Munster counties, Kerry excepted apart from some of its northern part, Kilkenny, Wexford, Dublin and Offaly in Leinster, Galway in Connacht and powerful pockets in north Antrim and the Ard peninsula in Down.

In Offaly, the hurling tradition has been largely based in the south of the county, close to the ancient Butler jurisdiction in north Tipperary. And in Ballinamere, we know that there was a tradition of hurling before a club was ever established in the area. In the late 1800s, there was a famous fair in Ballycowan – home of a famous Castle beside the Grand Canal – but it was often destroyed by violent faction fights.

There were similar fights in Ballykilmurray, not far away, where there was an established horse race meeting in the 1800s and in a bid to give local youth a more productive outlet for their frustrations, a priest decided to re-introduce hurling into the area under the rules of the new GAA in the 1880s. It took a few years for a Ballinamere club to be formally established – Tullamore was formed in 1888 and hurlers from the Ballinamere area soon headed in there.

When Tullamore reached their first senior hurling final in 1904, the team that was heavily beaten by Coolderry, had a handful of Ballinamere men, including Paddy O'Brien, Rody O'Brien, Jack Craven and Danny O'Brien.

Ballinamere were formed soon after this while there was also a club in existence in the Tinnycross end, in the Durrow area. They soon made progress, reaching the senior hurling final in 1908. Championships regularly ran late in that era and that final was only completed in 1909 – there had been a row over the venue for the semi-final against Killoughey until Killoughey volunteered to play them in their “own dunghill”.

Drumcullen edged out Ballinamere in that final, 2-1 to 1-2: the parish rule was finally introduced into Offaly in 1909, and that Ballinamere team included players from Rahan and Clara as well as Tullamore. That final was played in Killoughey and it seems they were not happy at their semi-final defeat – the name of Drumcullen star Jack Tooher was white washed across the pitch by someone. Ballinamere felt hard done by, that the local umpires gave wrong decisions against them but defeat was their lot – the pitch was on Gleeson's field in Ballyfarrell, Blueball.

That Ballinamere panel was: Danny O'Brien (captain), Jim Sheil, Paddy O'Brien, Mick Fletcher, Bil Scully, Paddy O'Brien (Arden), Larry Bracken, Pat Grennan, Martin Grennan, Martin Bracken, Jimmy Scully, Tom Fox, Stephen Egan, Bill Grennan, Tom Srahan, Mick Egan, Peter Berry, Pat Craven, John Dunne, John Craven, Frank Horan, Pat Maher, Jim Spollen.

Some of those names, Scully, Grennan, O'Brien remain entrenched in the Ballinamere area – they may not all be descendants but the Ballinamere squad on Sunday has a Scully on the backroom team, an O'Brien on the panel and two Maher's. Gerry Spollen only transferred to Na Fianna in Dublin this season.

The 1909 introduction of the parish rule moved the goalposts for a lot of clubs and Ballinamere was one of its victims. The loss of players from Rahan, Clara and perhaps other areas meant that numbers were an issue, though the bulk of that '08 team still came from their area.

In 1909, Tullamore won their first Senior Hurling Championship, beating Drumcullen by a point in the final. They did so with the assistance of several Ballinamere players and even the Tullamore club acknowledged afterwards that they should have played under the Ballinamere banner that year rather than vice versa.

The captain was the Ballinamere Paddy O'Brien and the decisive goal was scored by his brother Danny O'Brien – Danny was the grandfather of Donal O'Brien, a recent club chairman who has done fantastic work, and the great grandfather of current sub Mike O'Brien.

Ten of the 1908 Ballinamere team featured in the 1909 Tullamore success. In addition to the two O'Brien's, there was also the Arden Paddy O'Brien, Pat Craven, Larry Bracken, Martin Bracken, Mick Fletcher, Jim Shiel and Bill and Jimmy Scully.

Ballinamere reached the senior football final in 1909, losing by 1-4 to 0-3 to Daingean. That was a very loaded Ballinamere side. Tullamore and Geashill had been thrown out of the championship for early breaches of the parish rule and a number of players who would normally have been eligible to play with Tullamore transferred to Ballinamere “very much as a matter of convenience” - the final was actually played in Ballinamere. No club had been willing to host the final as they would have had to guarantee the County Board £3 from gate receipts and it was only after the board reduced this guarantee to £2 that Ballinamee took the final.

Whatever happened, it all had severe repercussions for Ballinamere as they disappeared off the map for over 20 years. Their players lined out with Tullamore, Tinycross and Ballydaly in that period – there had been clubs called Ballycowan and Kilbride in existence in the late 1880s.

A Ballinamere club reformed in 1930, beating Edenderry in their first championship game since those 1908 fixtures – the captain Ned Dunne scored a second half goal and he also purchased their jerseys for them, then green and black.

They fielded an U-16 team in 1933 and the long awaited breakthrough came in 1944 when they won the Junior Hurling Championship for the first time, beating Brosna (Shinrone area) in the final. They won intermediate a year later to win promotion to senior.

They went back to junior in 1950 and won that title again. Four Ballinamere played with Offaly in 1953 as they reached the All-Ireland Junior Hurling Championship final, losing to Tipperary – Ballinamere won intermediate in 1953 for the second time.

1959 was a great year for the club. They won their third Junior Hurling Championship title while several of their members helped Tullamore to win the Senior Hurling Championship.

Tullamore defeated Coolderry in a replayed final in '59 and it was a real parish effort. It included Durrow's Patsy and Mick McDermott (Mick is the father of current chairman Tom, the grandfather that Kevin sadly never got to meet as he died young in a work accident, leaving behind a big family).

Players who lined out for Tullamore and in Ballinamere's junior hurling final win over Kilcormac, a remarkably high scoring 9-7 to 6-8 shootout, were: Rody O'Brien, Joe O'Brien, Ted O'Brien, Peter O'Brien, Liam Wyer and Peter Daly. Those O'Brien's were sons of Paddy and Danny O'Brien who were such a help to Tullamore in 1909. Ballinamere full forward Joe Wyer was a Tullamore sub in 1959.

Most intriguingly, the both teams also included one of Tullamore's greatest hurling figures, Eamon Fox, a midfield star in 1959 – the rule allowing players to play junior and senior was only supposed to have worked one way with junior players going to senior. Fox had been in England in 1957 and 1958 and when he returned, he lined out for Ballinamere and Tullamore for a brief period: but when Ballinamere went senior, his allegiance was always going to be to his home town.

The Ballinamere team also included another famous Tullamore GAA personality, a future chairman Joe Bracken. Bracken was on the Tullamore team that won senior hurling in 1955 and 1964, their last until 2009 but didn't play in the '59 final – Fox played in all three finals. It is also interesting to note that apart from Bracken and Fox, none of the Ballinamere names that featured in '59 played in '55 or '64 finals - Having won the intermediate in '53, they were senior themselves in '55. In 1959, there was no intermediate and junior was the next step to senior which took Ballinamere players out of the Tullamore equation while they remained senior in the early 1960s until returning to intermediate in 1963.

They had some barren years then until winning junior hurling again in 1980, adding further titles in 2010, 2017 and 2023. They won a junior, intermediate double in 2017 as they headed inexorably towards the top flight and big breakthroughs.

In 1983, the club won their first football championship, junior. Both the 1980 and '83 junior hurling and football champions featured Tom Donohue, a Galway native who was corner back on the 1981 Offaly side that won their first All-Ireland senior hurling title. Vinny Wyer, a member of the Offaly senior hurling panel in 1985 and 1986, was on both, captaining the football winning side and some of the names are synonymous with the Ballinamere club.

It is remarkable to note that the 1980 junior hurling winning team included two players who played in 1959, Joe Wyer and the late Tommy Kelly, both well in their 40s then.

Sunday's final will be a huge day for the whole Ballinamere and Durrow area. With so many players involved, Durrow is immersed in it. It could not happen without them and would not have happened without them but it is a Ballinamere occasion.

They deserve huge credit for what is happening. This breakthrough could not have happened without their structures and work over several years, the passion they have for hurling.

Ballinamere people may be getting plenty of ribbing on the ground in Tullamore and environs about the Durrow influence, the home of some players, but this is a Ballinamere team and it is their day out. You only have to visit their impressive grounds to observe how well the club is going, off the field as well as on it. Their facilities are comparable to any in Offaly with a superb new main pitch the latest addition. They have a great community centre with catering facilities, a playground, a walking track and are a real hub for the entire community, not just its GAA people.

Their field was only purchased in 1976 from Joe Wyer with president of the GAA Padraig McFlynn officially opening it in 1980 and they have carried out developments in every decade since then.

Full amalgamation with Durrow almost happened in 2005. It didn't and like any siblings, there is occasional tension and rows between the two. You hear the complaints, the observations, the cutting remarks from both areas but separation is simply not an option. The young players now know nothing else and to go back to the old way would be to do the greatest of disservices to them and future generations.

Sometimes, there is an undercurrent bubbling not that far beneath the surface and it takes calm men and women, wise heads to ensure that this doesn't erupt. A regular complaint from the Durrow end is that they aren't getting enough footballers from Ballinamere, that the traffic is largely one way. There probably is something there for Ballinamere to look at and perhaps they could encourage football more – they certainly can't say they aren't getting hurlers from the Durrow area, irrespective of the other factors that led to this.

You wonder at times if they should revisit full amalgamation, if this would solve the friction that does emerge from time to time. There is a case for that but one long time Durrow activist made a very good point when I made that suggestion to him recently. He agreed with the genesis of what was suggested but quickly expressed the “fear” that a Kilcormac-Killoughey situation would emerge where hurling would take almost exclusive primacy and football would become a very subsidiary outlet.

As those words sank in over the following days, the truth of what he was saying became apparent. With hurling such a glamorous game now and Offaly on a high following the U-20 hurling exploits, it would almost be a surprise if this didn't happen.

Just as Kilcormac once was, or at least was close to, Durrow is a football area with a long proud tradition and the local club and activists have a duty to protect it. Offaly is a proud dual county and it needs to cherish both games equally. It needs footballers from area like Durrow and Ballinamere.

While the dual player is an endangered species, effectively extinct at the highest level, the two codes should not be in competition with each other and areas like Durrow are invaluable to football, just as Ballinamere is to hurling. Just as Offaly hurling will benefit from what is happening with Ballinamere, Durrow's dreams of senior football glory are also worth pursuing. They are further away than Ballinamere's but still attainable and perhaps the current dynamic with two separate but united clubs is the best model.

It takes work and compromise but it is working and for that, all the young players now should thank the people who buried the hatchet and put their differences and stung pride aside back in 2005-2006.