By Brendan McTaggart
Defeat at the hands of Division Two champions St John’s on Sunday last condemned Carey Faughs to relegation. A sour ending to a fascinating campaign in his first year of management for Michael Heggarty, the Carey man just hung up his hurl in 2016 and is joint manager with Martin McAuley this year but as he told us, it was a campaign that could have gone very differently for his side: “We were very disappointed but at the same time, Division Two was super competitive. Outside of the top two, there wasn’t much between the six below them and that showed with the league standings. We only beat Clooney Gaels by a point twice and they finished bottom. It’s been different to previous years where you might have had a couple of handier matches thrown in but it hasn’t all been bad. We’ve had some good performances without getting the results. In our first match we travelled to Portaferry and were only beaten by three points.
“The campaign was tough and difficult but it was an enjoyable one. At the end of the day league tables don’t lie and we weren’t good enough to stay in the league but as I say, there was no weaknesses or easy games.”
The Faugh’s have the unwanted tag of ‘always the bridesmaid’ when it comes to the Intermediate championship. Four final defeats in 11 years is a record that the Ballintoy men will want to ditch and Heggarty told us that they are eager to do so at the earliest opportunity: “It’s not a tag that sits well with us to be honest. You get what you deserve in this game and maybe we didn’t do enough in those games but look, we aren’t the first team to have had a run like this when you look at Loughgiel and the run of final defeats they had before they found that winning feeling again. It’s up to us as a management team to get the lads right on the day to make sure we can leave that tag behind us once and for all.”
Having defeated Glenariffe with a superb display in their opening match, Carey gained some form of revenge on Tir na nÓg for their defeat in the 2016 quarter-final but McAuley told us that revenge wasn’t in their thinking in the run up to the semi-final: “That match was never about revenge if I’m honest. It was a championship game of hurling that we needed to win and that was that. We knew with the matches we had with Tir na nÓg in the past that it was going to be a tough match and with the early sending off it made things harder but the lads pulled together and got over the line in the end.”
The Faugh’s will be without the services of influential midfielder Patrick Butler for the Final. Despite their attempts to have his red card in the semi-final overturned, Butler must sit this one out: “We’re gutted that Patrick’s going to miss the final. He’s a massive loss for us in midfield and we’ll certainly feel his absence. It’s up to the rest of the lads now to step up again.”
Heggarty was full of praise for the Faugh’s final opponents and told us that he sees them as big favourites to take the Intermediate crown to the city: “Sarsfields have had the other side of the coin compared to our season. They’ve been on a run and racking up big scores. It’s easy to see why they are favourites in many people’s eyes. They pose a massive threat and all year they’ve shown that they have a ruthless edge to their game. To come through the half of the draw they have shown enough if you ask me. Anyone could have come through that half it was that tight.
“They beat St Gall’s handy in the opening round and we couldn’t get near them twice so we know we’re up against it.”
With a small squad at their disposal, Heggarty told us that the Faugh’s have been counting the costs of a bruising league campaign but they should have a clean bill of health for Saturday’s decider: “We have a couple carrying knocks and niggles but apart from Patrick’s suspension, we’re confident that we’ll have a fully fit panel.”
Carey are hoping to bridge a 15 year gap from the last time they claimed the Intermediate crown and Heggarty told us that it would certainly put a silver lining on a dull season for the Ballintoy side: “It would be an unbelievable but there’s still 60 plus minutes of hurling to go through before I even contemplate that. This championship has been unbelievably open from the first game with any number of teams having high hopes of winning it, especially from the Sarsfields half of the draw. We know we’re up against it and they will start the match as favourites but our boys are as confident as they can be and are looking forward to getting going on Saturday.”