During his playing days with Kilnamona, Fergal Hegarty never came close to winning a Clare SHC medal but in his first year as trainer of the Ballyea hurlers he has helped guide them to the club’s first ever senior title.
This year has been a successful one on the coaching front for Hegarty having steered Inagh/Kilnamona to glory in the U21 championship earlier in 2016. From their first gathering in Kildysart back in January, he has built a bond with the players that wouldn’t be broken and it’s why he was so happy to see them succeed.
“Delighted for the lads that have put in, we started training the middle of January back in Kildysart and there was a wind coming in off the estuary it would cut you in two and they stuck at it ever since, we’ve had ups and downs, injuries and this and that but I’m just delighted for the lads more than anything, that’s my overriding emotion”.
An All-Ireland winner with Clare in 1995 and 1997, Fergal felt that Ballyea showed they were good enough in the drawn encounter, a game in which they took a lot of belief from. “Before the first game we felt we were good enough, we had the game nearly won going into injury time so we had a lot of confidence from that we knew we could do that but we just demanded a bit more from players and they delivered today”.
Goals from Gary Brennan and Niall Deasy were crucial to their three point victory. Having studied the first game they knew the importance goals would have in determining whether the Canon Hamilton would be going West or South.
“It was something we struggled at all year, something we did mention during the week was that we needed to score more goals, we got two we probably missed another two or three, we could have been well up after ten or fifteen minutes but you’re never going to put away a team like Clonlara they’ve such talent” the former St Josephs Doora/Barefield and Kilmoyley coach sai.
They welcome Thurles Sarsfields to Cusack Park on Sunday but for the next day or so they’re going to revel in their achievement. “We’ll turn out attentions to Thurles somewhere in the middle of the week, we’ll get Joe Neylon and a few lads back on the straight and narrow, a lot of these lads are very professional, Sarsfields are coming here to Ennis so we’d like to give a good account of ourselves”.