Hogan delighted as St Rynagh's retain Offaly title

Finally. After having the prospect of a county final taken away from them with just a few days’ notice last October, it’s been a long and anxious time for St. Rynagh’s manager Ken Hogan.

The former Tipperary goalkeeper acknowledged that this less-than-ideal scenario wasn’t unique to his players, but it still was a big challenge that had to be overcome in the right way if they were to finish the work they started 378 days previously, with a narrow win over Belmont.

“It was a tough year, for every club in the country and not just us” he said after his side’s 1-19 to 1-13 victory on Saturday evening.

“We were unique in that we were almost on the cusp of playing a county final last October and that didn’t happen. That was a huge disappointment to Offaly hurling as well as Kilcormac-Killoughey and St. Rynagh’s.

“We had to be patient, I felt the game could have went ahead because you had two very traditional teams who would have respected all the rules that would have been there, but that’s history. Fair play to the Offaly County Board, they got the game to the 14th of August on a beautiful field. Kilcormac-Killoughey, a great club, have beaten Rynagh’s in a number of finals so it is good to turn it over today”.

Crucial to that win was the 15 minute spell in the first half when St. Rynagh’s outscored their opponents by 0-8 to 0-0, their dominance built on the foundation of complete control of almost all the individual battles in front of Conor Clancy’s goal. Teenage corner forward Lochlann Kavanagh had a tough battle with Stephen Wynne, but otherwise it was one way traffic, with Pat Camon, Ben Conneely and Conor Hernon particularly impressive.

“They (Kilcormac-Killoughey) have marquee forwards who can turn on a sixpence and Lochlann is one of those guys. He’s a very good player, we had to be on our guard even when we were four, five up. A ball hit a post down there, if that had turned the other way it could have changed the game, so from that perspective I felt that we held well, hurled very strong, particularly Aidan Treacy, Gary Conneelly in the second half, won a lot of hard ball in the middle of the field.

“Every individual was important. We used five subs as we had to bring them on, every player in that panel is cherished. They kept the show going because we had five guys in with the Offaly team throughout the year, they had a great year as well. Those panel guys here kept the show going, when we played league game with 16, 17 players, they kept turning up”.

As county champions, St. Rynagh’s carried the mantle of favouritism into the game but the sight of heavy rain might have led some observers to think that the conditions would favour the more powerful, experienced hurlers that make up the backbone of Kilcormac-Killoughey. Instead, it was the Double K’s who had some ropey touches in the wet, while St. Rynagh’s hurling held up well.

“I’ve a great management team with Eunan Martin, Martin Hanamy and David Hughes, three famous sons of St. Rynagh’s. Andy Smith has done an awful lot of work on conditioning. I think the lads themselves take pride in their physicality. I think we were physical today, we fought the physical stakes well” said Hogan.

“We did play two challenge games in the last fortnight against physical teams but also on wet evenings, just by accident it turned wet” he added.

“It needs to keep going now. Obviously in a couple of more weeks we are playing the first round of the county championship so we can’t rest on our laurels now!”

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