NOEL FOGARTY IS well placed to assess the phenomenal feats of Our Lady’s, Templemore, who stormed to Harty and Croke Cup wins this year.
Fogarty was the two-goal Harty Cup hero of the Templemore CBS team that came from behind to beat St Flannan’s in 1978.
Not content with that, they went on to win the Post-Primary Schools All-Ireland senior A crown 39 years ago, seeing off St. Peter’s College, Wexford, in the final.
All those years on, Fogarty was a key figure alongside manager Tom Byrnes as Our Lady’s claimed the provincial and national double again.
“It’s not something I’ve really thought about, people reference it alright,” says coach Fogarty, as the achievements of Our Lady’s in 2017 begin to sink in.
“It’s a life-time ago, a sign I’m shoving on!”
Byrnes describes Fogarty as “unassuming and modest, loved by the lads.”
And Fogarty now holds the distinction of playing on Harty and Croke Cup winning teams, before going on to nurture them.
He remembers 1978 well, recalling how St Flannan’s “went to town” on Templemore CBS for three-quarters of the Harty final, before the tide turned.
Not content with winning the Harty Cup, Templemore CBS then turned their sights successfully towards the All-Ireland title.
History repeated itself last Saturday, when Our Lady’s beat four-in-a-row hopefuls St Kieran’s in Thurles.
And Fogarty explains: “Getting the Harty was a real priority, we hadn’t done it in 39 years.
But when we had the Harty won, we wanted to push on. You don’t get too many opportunities to win All-Irelands, and we tried to emphasise that to the lads.
“It was there for them, they had to go for it because they might not ever get that opportunity again, so they had to go and grasp it.”
The difference, this time, was that Our Lady’s went into the All-Ireland series as Harty Cup winners, a big difference compared to previous assaults.
“We had something tangible as well,” says Fogarty.
“To a certain extent, the pressure was off. A lot of these guys have All-Ireland minor medals.
They’re very driven themselves, we didn’t have to push them too hard. They pushed themselves and drove the whole thing on. We had a great captain in Paddy Cadell and Brian McGrath is a real leader as well.
“The experienced players, they drove the whole thing.”
In 1978, Pat McGrath was a player for Templemore CBS. In 2017, his son Brian starred on the Our Lady’s team, producing a series of brilliant displays in big games.
1-7 in the Harty final, 0-9 against Kilkenny CBS in the Croke Cup semi-final, and 1-8 in the St Kieran’s win bear testament to McGrath’s ability.
He was also Tipperary’s 2016 All-Ireland minor winning captain but while John and Noel have All-Ireland senior medals, Brian is the only one of Pat’s sons to win the Harty and Croke Cups.
“We had Pat on the sideline as well on days of the matches,” says Fogarty.
“He brought his experience to it, he’s used to being on the line and was a great help to us.
“Father and son, it’s a great link for the two of them. There’s not many people in the country who can say that the father and son have won All-Ireland Colleges and Harty cups.”
Fogarty’s own role can’t be under-estimated.
“I’ve been coaching teams all my life here,” he says.
“When John Costigan retired ten years ago, I took over the Harty and was at it for six or seven years.
“I passed the mantle over to Tom but Tom asked me last year would I come back and get involved. I was delighted to.”
And Fogarty has seen so many special players pass through the school doors, players who have gone on to represent Tipperary senior teams with distinction.
He’s conscious not to exclude anybody but from the current Tipp set-up, there’s Noel and John McGrath, Tomás Hamill and Dan McCormack.
Further back through the years, you can mention current Tipperary senior team manager Michael Ryan, his current selector Conor Stakelum, Gearóid Ryan, Noel Morris, Aidan and Bobby Ryan and Tommy Dunne, the latter two both former All-Ireland senior winning captains with Tipperary.
The list goes on when you consider the likes of Eamonn Corcoran, Paul Ormonde and David Kennedy, All-Ireland winners in 2001 in the team captained by The42‘s hurling columnist Dunne.
There are high hopes for a number of this year’s crop but no matter what they go on to achieve, they’ll always be remembered for 2017.
“We knew this year, it was now or never,” says Fogarty.
“We knew we had a really good bunch, it’s a monkey off the back.
“I thought the lads were fantastic to cope with it (expectation) all year. They knew they were supposedly favourites to win but to able to cope with that and perform…
“We tried to emphasise to them not to get distracted by what was said and written.
Those lads have shown a great deal of maturity but it was a real panel effort. We kept emphasising that we had 38 on the panel, nearly always 30 at training and that enabled us to have some very competitive internal matches. We hadn’t played a challenge in a long, long time, because of the strength of the panel.”
Now, they can reflect on a year they hadn’t seen in 39, and may not again for some time to come. But with a man like Noel Fogarty overseeing operations at Our Lady’s, Templemore, you wouldn’t bet against a repeat performance in the coming years.
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Why wasnt the match live on tg4? They always used to show this final live for years up till this year, sickened