Limerick’s Eoin Roche making coaching mark in Dublin hurling circles

LIMERICK native Eoin Roche has been building an impressive coaching CV over the last number of years. Roche coached Dublin club Na Fianna to the All-Ireland senior hurling championship title in January.

The West Limerick man, who grew up in Foynes, has been involved with Dublin underage squads as well as DCU Fitzgibbon Cup teams and the Dublin senior hurling squad.

“A good few of my brothers from Limerick are coming up and my father still comes up for all the games, it's good way to meet up and stuff like that. I'm very fortunate to coach a lot of the Dublin lads in development squads, in DCU, with Na Fianna and with county minor, U20 and senior squads over the last number of years,” said Eoin Roche.

Roche and his three brothers grew up playing hurling with Ballybrown. His older brother Joe won a county championship in 1991 and captained Ballybrown in 1995 when the city club lost to Patrickswell in the county final. Eoin's brother Kevin was also part of the panel in 1995.

“It's funny, I'm gone out of Limerick since 1996, so I would have been heavily involved with Dublin teams for the last ten or twelve years. It depends on what you are at and the individuals you are dealing with. I've been lucky enough to deal with Conor and Donal Burke since they were fifteen.

“Whereas, I don't know Tom Morrissey or Gearoid Hegarty, I'm more so going to enjoy the game of hurling and just hope the individuals and people I know go well.”

In January, Roche coached Na Fianna to All-Ireland club success. Former Limerick hurler Brian Ryan played a key role on the Dublin club’s run to All-Ireland glory where he was nominated for club hurler of the year. Adare's Charlie McCarthy was part of the extended squad.

“It was unbelievable, a lot of people see what happened in Croke Park in January. That was part of a five-year thing that a lot people had been through and for some of those Na Fianna players and the older fella’s it was a lot more than five years. As a group, it was a five year process and it was very satisfying, then for the families involved who had put their life and soul into the club and brought those boys up from nursery.”

Roche himself has witnessed the strong links between Limerick and Dublin hurling.

“I was very fortunate enough to hurl with Faughs for five or six years. There are very strong connections, there is a very strong Club Limerick in Dublin. Even Mick O'Grady, out in Lucan, a good Patrickswell man, would have strong links with Dublin hurling over the years. He's part of Friends of Dublin Hurling.”

Limerick are strong favourites with pundits to advance into the All-Ireland semi-final.

“If Dublin get things right and get their match-ups right in the defence and if they go after certain things, I imagine they will look a lot of things Cork have exploited over the years.

“Dublin also have massive pace in the middle third, nobody's giving Dublin a chance and they'll look at how other teams got at Limerick over the last two years,” added Roche.

Roche was also part of the Wexford senior hurling backroom team this year and he was blown away by Limerick's performance against Cork in the Munster SHC round-robin series.

“I was at first Limerick and Cork game, it was really impressive and really slick. If Limerick can transition the ball from back to front and get that stick passing right in the middle third and get quality ball inside, it's very hard to stop them, but all teams have weaknesses.

“At times, I felt Cork really got at them in the Munster final and amount times Limerick went down to secure possession and Cork just got it away from them. I'd say that was a massive focus for Limerick over the last two weeks, but that's also another thing that Dublin could look at.”

The former Na Fianna coach expects Limerick to come through this weekend against the Dubs’.

“Bookies are seldom wrong, you'd be expecting Limerick to win. That's not what always happens in these situations, I understand why Limerick have agreed to play the game in Croke Park.

“If Limerick put in a performance similar to what they put in against Cork in that first game, Dublin will struggle.”