Monaleen U20 hurling manager Niall Macken: 'We've got a good balance going in the club'

VICTORIOUS Monaleen U20 hurling manager Niall Macken has said the club are on the way up, but they're not there yet.

“The players born in 2006 on that team hold an U17, U18, U19 and U20's titles. It's incredible and the confidence that brings them going through, when they're going to be playing senior hurling.

“It's not just senior, half that team would have been playing junior hurling. They would have won the junior ‘A’ title this year and the junior ‘B’ title the year before. For our senior and premier junior ‘A’, it's big. We are on the up, but but we are not there yet,” Macken told Leader Sport.

2024 has been an excellent year for Monaleen where they have won premier minor, premier U20 and junior A championship titles.

“I think we've got a good balance going in the club at the moment. Eoin (Brislane) and Trevor (Galvin) taking over the senior side of the club. It was up to us to bring teams through like this, so they can manage a number of players and bring them up to a higher level.

“I know the lads that I would have hurled with 20 years ago are there from U6's to U16's coaching now. We just need to get that momentum coming through every year, so that senior management has bodies all the time to improve”.

The Castletroy-based club narrowly defeated Bruff in the premier U20 hurling championship final in Kilmallock on last Sunday afternoon. Limerick senior hurler Darragh Langan missed last Sunday's game after he broke his jaw in their semi-final victory over Doon.

Matthew Fitzgerald's excellent free on 64 minutes proved the difference between the sides as Monaleen hung on for a narrow one-point victory.

“It was a very tight game. The lads just dug it out, that's what we asked them to do. We knew it was going to be a battle. I thought our lads were just excellent, I'm not surprised. They are a fantastic team.”

Fitzgerald's free to win the game was a difficult one from the middle of the pitch.

“He's a brillant striker of the ball. He took over the free taking at a young age in the senior team. That was an unbelievable free, that wind is tough. He struck it so well, I'm delighted for him.”

The city club reached the last six in the senior hurling championship where they were narrowly defeated by Patickswell.
In the last few years Monaleen have seen a large amount of players included in Limerick hurling squads.

Darragh Langan, Ronan Lyons and Donnacha Ó'Dálaigh were all part of the Limerick senior hurling squad this year that won the Munster senior hurling championship.

Langan, Matthew Fitzgerald, Joseph Fitzgerald and Dara Ferland were part of this year's Limerick U20 hurling squad.

The next big challenge for Monaleen will be to integrate more of these players onto the senior squad. Kilmallock, Doon, Na Piarsaigh and Patrickswell reached the semi-finals for the second year in-a-row in the SHC.

Those four clubs have dominated the senior hurling championship. Monaleen will be aiming to make the jump into the big four over the next few years.