Shane fully focused on dealing a winning 'hand' for Kilcormac-Killoughey

WHILE candidly admitting that being a “prophet in your own land” is very hard to achieve, Shane Hand is embracing the challenges that it all entails.

In his second year as Kilcormac-Killoughey manager, Hand's sole focus is on Sunday's Senior Hurling Championship final against Shinrone and doing everything in his power to ensure that they don't encounter a second successive defeat.

Asked about his future plans last week, Hand understandably choose to keep his cards close to his chest but he is aware that the job won't get any easier as his son Daniel graduates onto the team, most likely next year. An exciting forward on the outstanding Offaly minor hurling team in 2022, Hand was in great form for K-K as they won the Senior “B” Hurling Championship this year and is one of the young players knocking on the door for a very quick senior call up.

Apart from that, there has been the usual challenges that accompany anyone managing their own club. A Kilcormac man living in Blueball in the Killoughey end of the parish, there is no hiding place for Hand, and nor does he seek one, as he goes about his daily life – going to matches of all grades, popping in and out to shops, going to Mass etc. He is very easy for the parents, brothers, sisters of aggrieved players to find and it does take a toll on him.

“Very difficult Kevin, very difficult. It’s difficult, I get it at home, I get it in the shop, I get it when I’m going to work.,” he confessed with great honesty when asked about managing his own club.

“I get asked that question the whole time. How hard is it? It’s very hard to manage your own club. There’s lads that are not going to be playing, you could meet their parents, meet their grandparents, it’s not easy. Going to Mass on a Sunday morning and there’s someone not happy with you. I’ve trained other clubs and I find training my own club is just so much more difficult. Very difficult having sons involved, I’ll definitely never favour my own sons and that’s probably to their hindrance. Diggy (Daniel) is coming along, a good hurler, like the rest of them a lot to prove still, he’s mad for action. So, to answer your question, I’m getting it everywhere I turn. I’m getting it at home, down the town, after Mass. It's very hard to manage your own club, especially when you have sons involved.”

First of all, Shane, a year ago since I was talking to you, how hard was it to get over last year's final defeat?

“Yeah look sure, like any final it was devastating to lose it, and the only small thing about it was Shinrone reminded me of KK back in 2012 when they hadn't won one, so no one in KK begrudged them, and that's being genuine. But apart from that it was devastating. It was a long winter with a lot of questions asked, I don't know if we have the answers got yet, but yeah it was devastating when you were heading into a dark winter. It's not easy, no.”

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I suppose at half time it looked like you could possibly win, but in the second half they really blew you out of the water.

“Completely blew us out of the water. It’s well known that we had a great first 15 minutes and we could've put the game to bed, but we didn't take our chances, and you can have all the chances you want, but if you don't take them it's no good. Point then at half time and you could sense that day that when there's only a point in it, Shinrone were given a big boost. They came out in the second half and Shinrone tore us apart. They outworked us, they out hurled us, we didn't match them in any department, so yeah blown out of the water completely.”

You got them together in January or February, did you do anything different, or did you freshen things up?

“No, no we got back on January 9th I think. The boys said before the Senior B final last week we’d 121 sessions done, so we've had a few more sessions since then. So John Leahy decided to walk away this year, and I took on more of the hurling end of things, but Sean Sweeney was still with us. Mark Leonard and P.J. Murray were there again this year, and then about six weeks ago we brought in Tony Gleeson. I knew Tony when he coached the Kilcormac Vocational School to two All-Irelands, so I knew him through that. An excellent coach, he knows all the young lads very well through the school, so just to freshen it up 6-7 weeks ago I asked Tony to come up and give us a hand a night or two a week and he has, so he's been a massive help to us.”

This year you obviously have two of last year's minors on the team, how big of a help is it to have players of that calibre coming in on the team?

“Oh it's a great help, and a headache. If you were to go around the parish there they'd ask: “why is this lad not playing? Why is that lad not playing?” But we blooded two last year, we blooded Colin Spain, we blooded Alex Kavanagh. Alex got a bad injury at the start of this year, he cut a tendon in his thumb, so he's only back actually the last 3-4 weeks, so he's playing catch up. We blooded another two young lads. But as I was saying to someone last week, there's a lot of young lads there and they're all mad for Senior A hurling, but you can't put them all on together. They're all after getting the experience of a full Senior B campaign, and we used Leigh Kavanagh then in the semi final last week, so it’s brilliant to have them. It's also a headache, it's just trying to get that blend of experience and young lads coming through. It’s hard work.”

Was the Senior Bs going so well a help or a hindrance?

“Oh absolutely a help, like the lads all train together, we’re very lucky that we could have 35 lads on the field every week so the in-house matches are good. The B’s play against the A’s and do very well a lot of the time. But no, it's a great help. but the Senior B this year, especially for all them young lads coming through, if we hadn't the Senior B team and say our second team is Junior A team, at least the Senior Bs are exposed to a good level of hurling. So it's a huge help because we had no worries then if we had to call in one or two of them against Rynagh's last week, we’d no worries about bringing one of them in.”

Was it hard not to play lads that were playing in an All Ireland under 20 final, the likes of James Mahon and whoever else?

“There’s James Mahon, Ter Guinan, Leigh Kavanagh on the panel, yeah it's hard to not play them, but it's hard to get onto the team too because, even though we were poor enough the first half last week, the six backs held Rynaghs to 1-14 so it’s very hard to break into the back line. I thought that the back line was solid even in the first half, I thought they played well throughout the game, they conceded only 1-14, so it's hard to come in. It’s hard for James Mahon to come in and push aside Oisin Mahon, who has probably been the most consistent hurler for the past two years. So it is a big step up from underage to adult hurling, and that's why I'm delighted with the Senior B, they're all after getting 5-6 full games and if any of the boys got injured, we’d have no problem bringing any of them in, but it's hard to push them out of the way. You’ve Enda Grogan, you've Jordan Quinn, you've Cillian Kiely, you’ve Thomas Spain, Brecon Kavanagh obviously made the team, it's hard to move them lads aside, but it's great to know that if anything happened to them, we have them lads reserved.

They're young too, they’re 18, the were young minors, it's not like they're old minors”

“Yeah actually a lot of them are only turning 18 this year. Now they are hungry chaps and they're mad for action, so if you ask them, they think they should be on it, and that's a good thing. They’re confident young lads, but as you say, they are only turning 18, and even down through the years it's only exceptional 18 year olds that come straight onto the team. No we were lucky we’d two last year, we've two this year, and we’re lucky we've another five or six, but again I think it's great that they got five or six full games in Senior B rather than 10 minutes in Senior A here and another 10 minutes there, but it's also great to know that they are good enough to step up, if we've injuries or if anyone's suffering a lack of form.”

How hard is it to mind a fellow like Adam (Screeney), who's obviously a once in a lifetime type hurler, where he comes in and he's a marked man, like I suppose his talent is such that you just have to play him?

“Yeah look I don't worry about Adam. Sure, his mother won’t want to hear this, but I reared Adam. I’m looking at him since he's in nappies and he's well able to mind himself. He might be small in stature, but he’s a big heart, and he’s feisty and afraid of no one, and he backs himself the whole time. He's a confident young lad, and as good as he is, he has no ego, he's not cocky, and he's confident in his own ability, well able to mind himself, and I have no worries about Adam.”

At the other end of the spectrum you've 2-3 lads that are there since 2012, who are obviously coming close to the end. How important is it for them to win another one?

“They are absolutely crazy to win another one. They're absolutely mad for it. James Gorman was gone off the last couple of years with injuries and that and look you have to manage them too. Sean Sweeney is an excellent strength and conditioning coach. The training for a 35 year old is different to an 18 or 25 year old, so he has them all on their own programmes, but they're very hungry for one more. We asked that question last week. There's lads there with four medals, we were asking if they wanted a 5th one, and they are very hungry for one. And it's great to have them there when all the young lads are coming because they're very experienced and, in fairness, they're talking to the young lads the whole time, they're encouraging them, they're putting an arm around them if they need it, they're giving them a kick up the backside if they need it, but it is a good mix. But to answer answer your question, I think the older lads are mad for one more.”

Because some of them, let's call a spade a spade, they don't have much time left to play at this level really.

“A spade is a spade, some of them have no time left, and that's being honest, and they know that themselves, and I’d say if we got it over the line last year, we wouldn't have seen one or two of them this year, and that's proving my point that they came back. You can take Damien Kilmartin there, we trained on January the 8th, now I might be wrong in saying this, I don’t think he’s missed one session, and that’s from January. So that just shows the hunger that’s there for the older lads.”

Ger Healion didn’t come on in the semi final, is he injured?

“No, it's just we felt that to open up Rynagh's, we needed that bit of extra pace. Maybe if Ger came in, Rynagh's would've had Pat Camon in there and Ben Conneely would have sat in front of him, and it might've just got clogged up, so we decided against it. We decided to put Charlie inside and just keep the fast ball going to the two boys inside, there was no injury.

Just speaking on Charlie, he didn't go well for 35 minutes. With a fella like that, with obvious talent, would you ever be tempted to take them off, or do you persevere? You see what Charlie did.

“It never crossed our mind to take him off at all. I’d probably take a lot of the blame for it because we're trying him out on the wing. Being honest, he's probably a better inside player, but we tried him on wing forward and he's gone well on wing forward throughout the year, but when it wasn't happening in the first half just before half time we put him inside. But Charlie is a confident player and, like any of the forwards, once he got a couple of the balls he got a couple of the scores, and I just think with a player like that, they always can produce a goal out of nothing, or get a moment of magic, or 2-3 quick points, so are you bringing on someone that's not as good and expecting miracles out of them. So Charlie’s a very talented hurler and it never crossed our mind to take him off at all.”

Just briefly going through your games this year without going into any depth. With respect to Tullamore and Kinnitty, you played them first, was that a help to you that you were able to get two wins under your belt and then you weren’t worrying about qualifying?

“Yeah, absolutely. When the draw came out and, again, this is no disrespect to Tullamore or Kinnitty because I have nothing only respect for every team we play against, but we're probably favourites to get the points from those games, and it took the pressure off us to an extent before we went and played Rynagh's and Birr, knowing that we’re probably in the quarter final anyway. So, yeah it is a help, and we knew we were qualifying so we just went out and played Rynagh's and Birr, obviously we still wanted to win them and get straight into a semi, but if there was a hiccup we knew we were guaranteed a quarter final anyway.”

I think last year coming up to the final, and even all during the year, you could sort of see that you were sitting ducks to an extent, that impression doesn’t seem to be here this year. You seem to be better this year, is that fair?

“Yeah we probably are. Like we were on a hiding to nothing going in to play last year, you know we said it, you said it, everyone said it, KK was the favourites, it’s going to be hard for Shinrone. And probably, to be honest, no one saw the second half performance coming, but it came, and we suffered so, and we weren’t shocked, we didn’t underestimate Shinrone for a second. But we probably are better prepared and I think we’re getting more out of Cillian Kiely in centre back, Adam adds a bit extra. Charlie Mitchell was doing his Leaving Cert last year, he was late coming back training, we probably only got him on in the final, he’s back now, so I think we are more happy where we have lads hurling and that. But yeah we were on a hiding to nothing really and everyone was just saying KK was going to win, and unfortunately it didn’t happen.”

Are you fitter this year? Wthout singling out Enda Grogan or anyone else, but I saw a picture of him there this week or last week, and he’s the fittest I’ve ever seen him

“Well, 3-4 years ago I was here with the Offaly 20’s one night, and Enda was here with the Offaly seniors and they thought they were going to have to send him for a hip operation, he was crippled with his hip and stuff like that. Sean Sweeney came in and, again, this is where Sean Sweeney is excellent. Like Enda is not able to do the training the other lads can do, he’s crippled with his hip. And it goes down into his hamstrings, now we had to pull him out in one of the games where Enda’s hamstring was at him in the morning, so we didn’t chance it. But like, three of four years ago Enda Grogan was nearly finished hurling and Sean Sweeney has him in the gym, not weightlifting or anything like that, doing his exercises, doing his rehab. If Enda’s struggling any night, we’ll take it easy on him, he goes and does his own bit with Sean. Enda Grogan is a beautiful hurler, absolutely beautiful hurler, and to think three or four years ago that he’d still be hurling, I would’ve said: “No, he wouldn’t”. Sean has managed him absolutely brilliantly over the last two years.”

I suppose, since KK made a breakthrough, you won three in a row, then you won one in 2017, you haven’t won one since. Is it a good enough turnaround? Obviously you’ve won four in ten years, anybody would take it, but the impression out there would be that there’s a sense of underachievement.

“Oh, absolutely, and we speak about it the whole time. Conor Slevin said it there one night “lads, don’t forget, we’ve lost more than we’ve won”, and that is a fact. We have lost more than we’ve won, even though we’ve made a breakthrough. 2015 they were probably a tired team, could’ve won in 2016, won in 2017, 2018, probably left it behind, Coolderry was the better team absolutely. Rynaghs did it three in a row. I thought we were in a good place at the time of Covid, we beat Belmont in the semi final. Covid came and there was a big break and I don’t think we trained hard enough then in the break before the delayed final. But, won four, probably should’ve won six or seven, to be honest. You’re always going to lose a couple, of course you are, but we should have six or seven in the bag at this stage.”

It is very important for you because the longer it goes, suddenly it becomes a monkey that’s very hard to shake off.

“Well, when did Birr win their last one, 2007, and they said look they’ll have a little lapse for a year or two and they’ll come back. That's 16 years. So, there’s no guarantee what's going to happen Sunday. There’s no guarantee last year that we were going to get back into the final. I think we’ve done brilliant to get back straight away. Shinrone did great to get back, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever get back to the final. There’s so much hurling to do, between losing the final last year, pick the lads up, train for 8-9 months to get back to the final this year, there’s a lot of work in it, so, as you said, every year that goes by is another year, and it’s another year of pressure. I’m hearing about the young lads that say it’s only a matter of time. I think that’s a load of codswallop, being honest, you have to go out and do it. You can talk about it and you can read about it, but you have to actually go out and do it. And until we do that we’re going to be just runners up again.”

Yeah because I’ve been going into Tullamore for the last few years asking about them dominating, it hasn’t happened even though they’ve won two in four years, there’s the same perception out there of KK with the teams you have, that when you win you won’t be stopping winning. But, it’s not that easy?

“You can win all the underage games you want and it could be that you’ve a few better hurlers, and the same will happen at another final where there’s going to be one or two individuals that’ll win it for Tullamore or win it for KK. And we're lucky we’ve a few coming up to adult hurling and everyone’s the same size as you, and they’re as fast as you, and they’re as strong as you, they’re very hard won, and I’d be very conscious of every year that goes by when we don’t win one. It’s very hard.”

And there’s a few lads here that haven’t won one.

“Well I said it there, the lads that have won four have won four, but the likes of Adam and Diggy (Daniel Hand), and James Mahon, and all coming through, they’re never won one. I won four or five underage medals but no senior, there’s no guarantee. The sooner we get over that line the better.”

Finally, it’s a bit of a role reversal slightly this year, but last year KK were red-hot favourites and this year Shinrone are slight favourites, they’re not red-hot, but they’re the right age, maybe a slightly better age than KK because they don’t have anybody too young and they don’t have anybody almost too old.

“Yeah, they probably are the perfect age group now, Shinrone. And, look, we all have the banter, Shinrone favourites, KK favourites, as far as I’m concerned its a 50/50 game, and it’ll be won on the day. Shinrone will be placed as favourites purely because they’ve been excellent champions, and you can say what you like, they have been excellent champions. I waited around for them for an hour last year, it broke my heart but I waited around for them, the respect that they showed us when we went into the dressing room was unbelievable. They were delighted, they were mad to tear the house down, but you could hear a pin drop when we were speaking. They’ve carried themselves as champions, there was no crap out of them, there was no bull talk out of them. I just thought they carried themselves well, and they just looked like a new team this year. As I said to you before, they’re like KK when they’ve won one they’re so confident and relaxed, there’s no panic stations, and I thought the second half against Ballinamere, you could just see that they’ve won a county final last year.

There’s no doubt KK are better this year than they were last year, Shinrone are probably the same though.

“Yeah I think we’re going better than last year but, definitely, Shinrone are going better than they were last year. And I just think it sets us up for a great final.”