Na Piarsaigh’s Darragh Droog on SHC final – “They’ll definitely be the best team that we’ve met this year”

Na Piarsaigh strength and conditioning coach Darragh Droog knows that his side have their work cut out for them in this Sunday’s SHC final as they prepare to take on their 2014 conquerors, Kilmallock.

It promises to be a thriller as the county’s two most successful senior sides of recent times come into the game looking to make amends for last season’s disappointments. Droog says the goal at the start of the campaign was always to get back to the showpiece event.

“We had a really good year in 2015/16 missed out on it last year, so we’re really happy to get back here. That would have been the main aim at the start of the year.”

Na Piarsaigh booked their place in this year’s final with a 2-18 to 2-14 win over Doon, The S&C coach saw the semi-final win over a strong side as great preparation for the final.

“We played exceptionally well for that first 15 minutes, after that I think Doon played exceptionally well and there’s parts of that game where we were lucky to come out with the win. Great credit to Doon despite the start that we did have.”

“Any time you get a real hard battle you always find out a lot about yourselves, a lot about your team. It was ideal preparation, Doon are a very good side and they tested us in every aspect of the game.”

Na Piarsaigh captain Cathal King and Kilmallock captain Liam Hurley with the John Daly Cup. Picture: Keith Wiseman

This Sunday Na Piarsaigh face their biggest test of the season as they attempt to secure their second county championship in three years. Droog admits that his side have found it difficult to deal with Kilmallock over the past few years.

“They’ll definitely be the best team that we’ve met this year, you can see in the last number of years that we’ve found it very difficult against Kilmallock, so you’d certainly be expecting an exceptionally difficult game.”

However, he does point out that The Balbecs run to the All-Ireland final in 2014 did inspire Na Piarsaigh in their exploits the following season.

“We’d have seen it in 2014, when they beat us in the county final and went all the way to the All-Ireland final. That really opened our eyes to think that we were close enough to Kilmallock at the time and they went all the way to an All-Ireland final. It really helped our journey the next year.”

In terms of preperation, Droog says his side will approach the game like they would any other. “We spend a little bit of time analysing and all of the opponents we have, Kilmallock is no different. We probably know them a bit more because we’ve played them in some high-profile games but we would take the same due diligence to all the games. We’ll take it as we’ve taken every other game.”

Na Piarsaigh come into the game as strong favourites, thanks in part to an explosive front line that includes under 21 All-Ireland team of the year star Peter Casey. Droog admits that his side do have a great deal of fire power up forward but says that they can’t rely exclusively on attack.

“We are very lucky, we have some exceptionally good players, if they all play well on the day have the ability to score lots but it’s more than just a front six. We can’t just go out and try to score more than the opposition, Kilmallock will be a good defensive unit and they’ve got some really good attacking threats”

In response to Na Piarsaigh coming in as favourites, the coach says that there is nothing that they can do about how they are being viewed by others, they simply need to turn up and play their game on the day.

“We work hard, the boys train exceptionally hard, they look after their bodies very well. All their lifestyle aspects are looked after very well, their hurling is looked after well, they train well. We’re just going to turn up and do the best we can, we can’t control what anyone thinks about us or says about us.”