By DARREN KELLY

AT national level, Mattie Kenny is known as the former Dublin manager, former coach with the Galway seniors and two All-Ireland winning under-21 teams, and a two-time All-Ireland senior club winning manager with Cuala.

He has travelled all over the country and paced the sidelines of Croke Park on multiple occasions. But at the heart of his passion for hurling is his love for the club. And the desire to bring success to Tynagh-Abbey-Duniry shines throughout every step of this historic run.

“There’s huge excitement building up locally,” states Kenny ahead of Tynagh-Abbey-Duniry’s first ever outing at GAA headquarters. “It’s great for the community and the parish.

“You’d be hoping that it will inspire the young kids to train and to dream of getting to this level. It’s good for the next generation as well as the current set of players.

“These are the people you’ve grown up with. These are the people you’ve gone to school with. These are the people that you live locally with. It means so much more.”

Kenny hurled for many years and was a member of Abbey-Duniry’s 1989 county intermediate championship success, long before a national series for this grade emerged.

And after three winless championship games eventually resulted in relegation in 2022, himself and a strong management team including Liam Hodgins, Tom Breheny, Kevin Devine, Tom Moloney, Liam Power, Ambrose Hodgins, David O’Dea, Paul Melly and Colm Larkin stepped in to revive the club’s fortunes.

“We’d a very clear mandate what we needed to do,” added Kenny who was also the club’s talisman in two senior final jousts with Athenry in 1998 and 1999. “That was to win the intermediate championship and get back up competing at senior level again.

“Hurling is in our DNA  And that’s (senior) where we need to be competing. We’ve a hugely energetic club. We’ve great people here in the locality from coaching and mentoring from underage all the way up.”

After a final loss to Ballinderreen in 2023, Tynagh-Abbey-Duniry delivered county and Connacht final victories over Kinvara and Tooreen this season.  And after overcoming Rathnure St. Anne’s before Christmas, they’ve set the stage for the blue and green’s biggest game in their history.

“Christmas comes every year. A chance to play in an All-Ireland Final comes once in a generation,” added Kenny.  “There was nobody complaining. Everyone was looking forward to the training sessions.  And the guys have worked hard, prepared well.

“We’re well aware of the quality of this team (Watergrasshill). Like a lot of Cork teams, they’re pacy, they’ve good quality hurlers. They play the game at a very, very high speed.  And they’re a formidable challenge for us.

“We’re just really trying to fine tune our own game and bring the best performance we can on the day.  We know the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition.  But at the end of the day, we have to prepare ourselves the best we can and bring our game and give ourselves a fighting chance.”

Pictured: Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry manager Mattie Kenny who has led the team to Sunday’s All-Ireland Club Intermediate hurling final.