Tommy Shefflin believes Ballyhale Shamrocks’ youngsters have the edge over rival clubs thanks to their experience of playing with established professionals.
The famous Kilkenny GAA club is home to hurling stars Colin and Michael Fennelly, TJ Reid and Henry Shefflin and have cemented their status as one of the country’s most successful hurling clubs.
Nathan Murphy took a trip down to Ballyhale for the Saturday Panel to sit down with some club members and Tommy Shefflin highlighted the club’s youth development as a major reason behind their success.
“I’m involved with the senior team this year,” Shefflin said.
“We trained last night when we were supposed to play a match against Castlecomer in the Burren Cup but they couldn’t field a team. So we had to have an in-house match among ourselves.
“We had to go look for 16 and 17 year-olds to have enough numbers for two teams. There’s young lads like Casey Corcoran, who’s 16, playing hurling last night. And if you go by the rules of the GAA – we’re breaking the rules by playing these young lads.
“But we had no choice but to go and look for him. And Casey Corcoran and the other lads were hopping off with Colin Fennelly – those young lads don’t even know that they’re being exposed to that level.
“You’re in a warm-up with 15 and 16 –year-olds with TJ Reid and Bob Aylward and they’re leathering balls at you. You have no option but to adapt. If you don’t, the drill breaks down and the lads will be getting on to you.
“Without these young lads even realising what’s going on, they’re thrown into the middle of it and that brings them on a tonne. We had six or seven 16-year-olds playing an internal match. Joey Holden was out doing the warm up and Richie Reid was hurling.
“If you look at the town teams that have huge numbers – those 16 and 17-year-olds would not get that experience because they have 21 and 22-year-olds to fill in the gaps.
“At underage in Ballyhale at 13 or 14, we’re not able to compete with the town teams because they have big numbers. But when we get to 17s and 18s, our lads from the 13s are still hurling as the town teams are losing these young lads because they have the huge numbers.”
James Hopper
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