Kyle Tourish backing MacCumhaills to hold onto IHC title

It’s hard to believe looking at the powerfully built MacCumhaills centre-back and captain, Kyle Tourish, that he is actually 30 years of age.

But the very youthful Tourish is also the proud possessor of two county senior championship medals - the first coming back in 2010 when his club beat neighbours Setanta by 0-15 to 0-10.

They then stopped Burt from winning ‘six-in-a-row’ in 2016 on a margin of 2-13 to 2-9.

The remaining years have been lean but Tourish has fond memories as a 17-year-old winning with his childhood heroes like Jamesie Donnelly, Paddy Hannigan, and Justin McGee.

He was a more prominent figure in 2016 and has been a mainstay of his club in the more recent leaner years.

Tourish does not accept the proposition that MacCumhaills are hot favourites in Saturday’s IHC final against Carndonagh and that the tag might put extra pressure on them.

“I wouldn’t say pressure, but even though we won last year, we are not going to underestimate Carndonagh.

“This year, we are better prepared and we know what they are about. We beat them earlier this year, but that won’t count for much on Saturday.

“We won fairly well in the end but on the day, anything can happen. However, we certainly won’t be underestimating them at all. It’s easy to forget but they were on top for quite some time in last year’s final.”

When asked where the main threats would come from Carn, he referenced Padraig and Cathal Doherty as well as Luke White as very good marksmen.

“They are tough lads but we have a few county lads like Gavin Browne, Fintan Griffin and Conor Griffin and, of course, Lee Henderson is still some performer.

“We have a good solid core, who were all around back in 2016 and that hopefully will stand to us.”

Tourish is keenly aware of the threat Carn posed last year as they went six points up early in the second half.

“They really outplayed us in the first half last year and our management had something to say to us at half-time and told us to cop ourselves on basically.

“We’re not getting any younger, but we do have a very good underage structure and our U-17s are in the county final against Aodh Ruadh.

“Dan Donnelly and Jacob Malone are huge talents who will be coming through next year and Dan is the son of Jamesie Donnelly, who is a real club legend.

“A lot of people are putting a lot of work into underage hurling in the club.”

But MacCumhaills have also been getting a big boost from the athleticism and drive of club and county football star Joel Bradley Walsh.

And Tourish says Walsh has given them a new attacking dimension.

“He is a very good player and a big physical man who can catch a ball from anywhere and if he gets more stickwork, he will be very good.”

He added: “We have prepared well, and our fitness has come on and we will be fully focused on delivering a big performance on Saturday.”