Newcastle West's Mike McMahon: ‘We embrace that we are a dual club’

MIKE McMahon has been lining out with Newcastle West since 2003. McMahon is one of the many Newcastle West players who balances playing football and hurling throughout the year.

This year saw the Magpies win the Premier Intermediate hurling title. Newcastle West have made their long awaited return to the top tier of Limerick hurling after a 30 year absence at the grade.

“In a hurling sense, you would have to call it a massive success. We laid out at the start of the year that we wanted to be a senior club. Ultimately we achieved that.

“I think we were the best team in the county by a bit this year. If you want to be playing senior hurling, you need to be winning your championship comfortably and not falling over the line. In order to prepare yourself for senior hurling” said McMahon.

The Newcastle West full forward puts the club's success down to the fact that players and management are embracing dual commitments.

“I think the buy-in to the fact that we are a dual club. Some clubs nearly have separate panels. We probably have 12 or 13 fella's that can put their hand up in football and hurling. We were messing around with training on different nights. We started training on the same nights. Everyone bought into it then and with a small bit of luck we could have won county titles in both football and hurling”.

Senior hurling will be a challenge for the west Limerick club but it's something the garda feels his team are ready for.
Con Hayes and Ethan Hurley of Newcastle West have recently been named on John Kiely's Limerick senior hurling pre-season squad.

“It's huge, I could nearly go back as far as 1994 or 1995 to the last time we had a senior panelist. And to have two on the senior hurling panel, Ethan paved the way last year. Con followed suit this year.

“By all accounts, Bryan Nix should have been called in as well. He had an exceptional year for us this year. Young lads are looking at these three lads, and saying why can't I be playing for Limerick”.

Staying senior is vital for Newcastle West according to McMahon.

“The important thing now is to stay senior and to try and compete and win it. I'd be targeting to win group two of the senior championship and get up to group one of the senior championship.”

McMahon is enjoying lining out at the edge of the square in football and hurling.

“I am, it'll be a new challenge again. I was 39 a few weeks ago and that's my challenge all the time to keep up with the young lads. I'll have to play one year of senior at least after struggling in intermediate for so long.”