After the breakthrough, the bonus territory.
“It was something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my days, I’ll tell you that.”
So says Conor McDonald of Naomh Eanna’s first ever Wexford senior hurling championship win.
The match itself was amazing, McDonald’s two goals the difference between themselves and St Martin’s, the scenes afterwards were unforgettable.
Normally when a team wins a championship, a convoy of cars parades up through the town or the village with horns beeping and with heads roaring out every window.
They couldn’t do that in Gorey.
“We had to walk because the crowd was ridiculous. There was the pipe-band, sure it was magical stuff,” he said on Thursday’s GAA Hour Show.
It sure was magical, and this whole year has been a bit of a fairytale for the north Wexford club.
That hurling win came just a week after the club, with more-or-less the same players involved, won the intermediate football championship in the county too.
Unsurprisingly, the celebrations were tame after the football win – they spent that Sunday night doing a recovery session for the following Sunday, that win coming on the back of an extremely busy run of weeks.
“Myself and Cathal Dunbar have played for 19 weeks in a row, since the Westmeath county game, since the Clare game – since then we’ve played 17 weeks in a row with the club – hurling and football…So while it’s nice to get a break from the running with the county, it’d be nice to get a break too you know,” he said.
The club’s decision to target both hurling and football this year, however, has paid off.
“With this team, keeping it week-in-week out has suited us. When we were going into games that we hadn’t been in before, like the senior semi and the final – to have another focus for a week turned our attentions to that then – for a young team, it probably suited us.”
“This was the first year I played the full year with the footballers since I was minor. Every lad was the same, everyone rowed in this year and we reaped the rewards of it thank God,” he said.
Six years ago, Naomh Eanna were junior.
Today they won their first ever Wexford SHC final, Conor McDonald scoring two decisive goals 🙌 pic.twitter.com/kpcV68b7Qf— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) October 21, 2018
As for himself – a sharpshooting full forward with the hurlers – he was more of a jack of all trades with the footballers.
“I was a bit of a John O’Shea there, with the footballers, wherever I was needed or put,” he says. “I started the first game full back, I don’t know how…I was midfield for the remainder of the year and then I was full forward in the final,” he laughed.
A lot of work in the club’s underage structures has got them to where they were.
“In the last five to ten years. It’s really pushed on…at the minute our under-15 team has won the double for two years in a row, our minor footballers and hurlers are absolutely flying. There’s more and more members coming in the whole time, and it’s just deadly to be honest,” he said.
And this weekend, they’re in bonus territory and buzzing for the challenge that Ballyhale Shamrocks pose. The Kilkenny champions are coming to Wexford, they’re coming to the Lion’s den, so they’d want to be ready.
You can listen to the McDonald interview, weekend previews and much more from Thursday’s GAA Hour Show right here.
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