Eddie Brennan thought that these days were gone.
He’s won it all in his hurling career. Eight All-Irelands, 11 Leinsters, four All-Stars and a county senior title for Graigue/Ballycallan. But fast Eddie is 40 years of age now.
He spends his summer Sundays on The Sunday Game couches these days. He manages teams like the Kilkenny under-21s and the Laois hurlers and that’s his means of coming close to the thrill and the buzz that only playing hurling can give a man again.
He was only supposed to experience days like those ones on the other side of the four white lines from here out. And he was content with it that way.
Eddie Brennan had it unbelievable on the hurling pitch, but there comes a time when every hurler has to pass the book on and he’d accepted the fact that his time had come.
Graigue Ballycallan lost the Kilkenny intermediate final last year to St Pat’s Ballyragget and he thought that was his last shot. They’d given it a rattle and he had the best of times to look back on anyway.
It wouldn’t have been a bad way to bring his innings to a close but the jig wasn’t up yet.
This year, that little club composed of the villages of Graigue Cross, Ballycallan and Kilmanagh made it back to the final again and Brennan, now pulling the strings rather than shooting the lights out, played a key role in them getting there.
Only this year they’d go one better. All final victories are sweet but Graigue Ballycallan’s one on Sunday over Tullaroan, coming from nine points down to win by two, must be sweeter than the most sugary strawberry pavlova in the world.
And so it was. The emotion was something extraordinary for the men in light blue, winning their first adult championship since way back in 2000 when they won the senior.
Next year, it means everything for the club to be back senior again but for the day that was in it, it was all about celebrating the championship they’d just won.
Great snap of Kilkenny legend Eddie Brennan celebrating @graiguebcGAA Kilkenny intermediate win today with kids Harry and Maeve 👏 pic.twitter.com/KkBrR1ifMC
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) October 28, 2018
They did that. Brennan celebrated with teammates. His son Harry was on the field within minutes of the final whistle, patting him on the back in pride.
“I thought these days were gone, you know, just unreal,” he said hoarse with emotion in the aftermath.
But Brennan also knows that there’s a winner and a loser in every championship final. Tullaroan have been beating on the intermediate championship door for years now only to come up excruciatingly and painfully short.
They’ve lost semis the last two years but this year looked like it was theirs’ as they raced into a nine point lead at one stage in the second half.
They ended up falling just short but that won’t make it any easier for them. This loss will have cut deeper than ever before.
The figure Kilkenny legend Tommy Walsh cuts in the below video from TG4, that beautifully charts the fine margins between the elation and the heartbreak, sums up just how much it meant to both.
The moment he and Brennan shared 1.23 into this video, with Walsh barely able to lift his head, before shaking hands with Brennan and saying something along the lines of fair play sums it up.
An emotional @NedzerB13 speaks to #GAABEO after his Graigue – Ballycallan side came back from behind to beat Tullaroan in the Kilkenny Intermediate Hurling Final. #GAA #GAABEO #TG4 @ballsdotie @The42_ie @SportsJOEdotie pic.twitter.com/UmeqQNF8vk
— GAA BEO TG4 (@GAA_BEO) October 30, 2018
That’s hurling for you.
