*Tom Hannan gets a shot away from Conall Ó hÁiniféin. Photograph: Natasha Barton
Having already won intermediate hurling and football titles, twins Jack and Tom Hannan lead St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield’s bid to become an established dual senior club once more, a three year quest that requires one major push on Sunday in the Intermediate Final against Smith O’Brien’s in Cusack Park (2.45pm).
Distinguished by their numbers and different coloured helmets, it’s a little more difficult to tell the Hannan twins apart when meeting them for the first time in Roslevan.
Thankfully, any fears were allayed with the response to the standard opening twin question ‘which one of you is older?’
“I am, Jack by the way in case there’s any confusion.”
There was but admitting the extent of it wasn’t entirely necessary as further ice was broken by listing each other’s key characteristics and strengths.
“Jack is extremely determined. I think he gets injured because he plays on the edge so much. I think it’s a great quality to have to be able to play on the edge and especially after so many injuries to still not lose any of the competitiveness or hunger. That bravery and desire to win comes through on his performances,” said Tom.
“Tom is probably the real leader for us this year anyway. He sets the standards in training and on the field. Shane [Dowling] keeps note of the tackle count during the game and between himself and Eoin Hanrahan, I’d say they’re almost top in every game so he’s the stand-out leader for us this year. People call him a moaner at times but he’s only trying to make sure we win and wants everyone to perform and play well,” Jack surmised.
Other common denominators include both suffering cruciate injuries, admittedly supporting each other to the hilt on and off the field as well as their experience in finals with this being Doora/Barefield’s fourth intermediate final in six years if you include last year’s football triumph.
“Having played in previous finals will be a small bit more easier on the nerves I suppose but they’ll still be there,” admits Jack.
“The way I look at it is that the majority of players on the panel now were either involved in 2016 or they were playing football last year,” continues Tom. “There’s only a minority that haven’t been involved in anything so it’s good that most players have played in an adult championship final”.
Delving deeper it seems that previous losses have driven on this Parish side in terms of sheer hunger to finally get over the line. The 2019 final defeat to Broadford was difficult to stomach but it was the aberration of last year’s 15 point semi-final reverse to Tubber that cuts deepest as Tom acknowledges.
“Look I know we didn’t play well in the 2019 final but the hurt of last year is the big one for most lads. That semi-final was a pretty embarrassing performance so that’s still fresh in most lads heads as we don’t want to see a repeat of that ever again in any game. You don’t mind losing when you’re beaten by a better team but losing in that manner because you didn’t turn up is fairly demoralising.”
Thankfully according to Jack, Doora/Barefield have already received this year’s wake-up call in Cusack Park with a final group defeat to Corofin. “We actually got lucky because if that had been a quarter-final, it would have been curtains again. Last year, everything was going well until the Tubber match but we just never turned up whereas this time against Corofin, we weren’t overly poor, it’s just that they worked harder than us and I think it was a good eye-opener to show us that we have to work harder than other teams to win”.
So what of Sunday’s opponents Smith O’Brien’s Tom? “We’ve played them a couple of times and it’s never been straight-forward, there’s always only been a puck of the ball in it. I saw them play against Tulla this year and they’re a real hardworking team so we’re not going to get anything easy off them. If you switch off for a second, they’ve plenty of hurlers to punish us. Their hunger on breaking ball especially is just phenomenal so our big goal is to match that and if we can do that, we’ll be well in with a chance. They’ve beaten Tulla twice in one year which is no easy task so they pose a real threat. We played them last year in the first round and they’ve definitely come on since then so we’re under no illusions as to what awaits us on Sunday”.
Sentiments echoed by Jack when noting that Smith O’Briens ‘will be confident as well I’d say because they’re the only unbeaten team left so that solid momentum behind them will be difficult to stop”.
Jack and Tom’s ability to finish each other’s sentences is remarkable which begged the final question, what’s the big difference between them?
“I’m a forward and he’s a back.” was Tom’s immediate quip. “Although he’s been creeping up the field a little lately so he has been coming into my zone a bit which is a little worrying so hopefully he doesn’t get too good at it”.
A score from either a green or blue Hannan helmet will be equally celebrated on Sunday as St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield look to open a new chapter of their already storied history.
