O’Neill and Buncrana aiming for the next level in 2023

Buncrana manager Tommy O’Neill travelled up from New Ross, Co Wexford, to lead his team to victory in the U-21B Hurling final last Thurday and he hopes the Scarvey-based club can go the extra mile next season too.

At O’Donnell Park on Thursday, in the third attempt at playing the final, Buncrana were comfortable 6-14 to 1-4 winners over Dungloe to lift the title. Next season, O’Neill will take charge of the seniors and although there has been plenty of work done, there’s more to do.

“I’m taking the seniors next year and there’s some quality sides in that,” he said in Letterkenny. “Those established clubs have the numbers and they have the experience. We always have had a team but there’s a wall there we need to get over. Hurling is a cultural thing and it takes time. You just can’t come in at 17 or 18 years of age and think you can pull it off.

“We had a bit of a lull but it’s filling back up and now it’s a matter of getting those lads there up to the seniors and we’re looking at setting up a junior team now as well. If the numbers stay good we might but there’s a lot of the lads going away. There’s three from that U-21 team headed to Australia next month and talk about some going to England.”

O’Neill was glad to end 2022 on a high, with the first scheduled final falling foul to the frozen O’Donnell Park pitch before the second meeting was abandoned in thick fog two nights before Christmas.

“This is the third time we tried to play this game so it’s nice to get it sorted. We played half a match or so in Convoy last week and the fog came down that bad - you couldn’t even see the goals that night - after the first was postponed,” he added.

Buncrana put on the burners against Dungloe to lift U-21B Hurling Championship

Buncrana's Oisin Kelly scored 4-1 with his team in control from the off against Dungloe in the rescheduled final at O'Donnell Park

However, with Buncrana hitting the ground running on Thursday, the nerves soon disappeared and O’Neill’s team were comfortable in the end, with Oisin Kelly, Caolan O’Neill and David Carey impressing.

“Getting a goal so early really got us going,” the manager said. “Then we’d three goals inside of 10 minutes and we went on from there. We had a lot of work done there this year and it stood to us. Caolan and David played well in the middle of the field - Caolan is a great man with the frees - and Oisin helped himself to a few goals. It all worked well on the day.”