*Smith O’Briens players celebrate. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
Tony Gleeson came back for his second stint as coach and manager to the Smith O’Briens hurlers this year and it was a contributory factor for the club claiming their second intermediate title.
Aged twenty six, the Burgess native saw his own playing career cut short through injury. After guiding the Burgess/Duharra camogie club to county and provincial honours, Gleeson’s coaching ability piqued the attention of his neighbours across the bridge.
Being on the sideline in a managerial capacity brings much more pressure than playing between the white lines, the teacher admitted. “You take it on board way more as a coach than as a player, you feel you have the whole place on your shoulders but when it pays off my God is it worth it”.
Meeting St Josephs Doora/Barefield in the final was always going to be a tight affair, he acknowledged. “What a battle. I saw the weather forecast last night and I saw there was a storm due, we dealt with that. It was a game of two halves, the hurling couldn’t flow but we said to ourselves it was going to be a battle like that last two games we had, the games against Tulla and Tubber really brought us on”.
They would fire the final four points in this decider to claim a historic 0-14 0-12 win and their second intermediate title. “After the third quarter after we had it back level and we had the wind, the lads almost came off after that quarter thinking we had the hard work done but St Josephs massive credit to them for the way they fought back they were terrific but our lads dug deep, we were two down going into injury time but got the last four scores which was massive”.
