JOE O’Driscoll has seen the good days, and not-so-good, with Muintir Bháire, and he keeps coming back for more.

BY TOM LYONS

From the wild beauty of the Dunmanus Peninsula he has ventured forth with his teams in maroon and white, always hopeful, always realistic that survival as a club and not titles is the real victory.

Twenty years ago, Muintir Bháire were highly competitive in the Carbery junior A championship. Now they can only dream of returning to those heady days as rural depopulation, lack of industry and many other problems have seen the club struggling to make an impression in junior B.

‘We’ve had some very lean years for a while, we’re down junior B for a few years and have been struggling in the grade,’ said O’Driscoll after Muintir Bháire lost their Cork  Confined JBFC opener to Castlelyons (1-10 to 0-9) in Enniskeane.

‘But, having said that, we had four young lads tonight coming through from minors and will have four more next year. So the future is looking brighter. Our problem is that we have very few players between 23 and 30. The players we have at present are either very young or at the veteran stage.

‘We have a few lads that are struggling age-wise at the upper end but they have no choice but to stay on to see us through these years. We have very competitive teams at U16 and minor and they will be coming through. We’ll keep positive, keep building.’

Castlelyons' Eoin McLoughlin gets to grips with Muintir Bhaire's Calvin Cronin. (Photo: Paddy Feen)

After a dozen years of diminishing fortunes, it isn’t all doom and gloom for the future. The club embarked on an ambitious development plan which now sees it with some of the finest GAA facilities in West Cork and a top-class pitch as well, a sharp contrast to the days when they had to use the beach for training and games.

There is good news, too, at underage where they have managed to put a talented bunch of young lads together, campaigning successfully at minor grade this season. There is great hope for that squad but holding them together and to get them to keep playing for the club is the big challenge facing the present hardworking officers and mentors.

‘Like all rural areas it’s a struggle to keep our younger population,’ said O’Driscoll.

‘The reality for us is that we produce some very good underage teams, and were very competitive at junior A for a while but can’t hold onto them. Emigration is killing us. Our aim and ambition is to build a team to get us back to junior A again but you have to walk the walk, play with what you have.’

O’Driscoll added: ‘Our big hope is not to win counties but to get the very best out of the group of players we have, to make them the best players they can be. And we want them to enjoy it.’