When it was over, when Ben Stafford’s meteor had finally fallen to earth and St Martin’s had to start getting used to the fact that they were Leinster champions for the first time, Daithí Hayes turned and looked up into the Hogan Stand. Looking back at him were all the years and all the threads of almost a century’s work, all coming together in a couple of hundred souls bouncing in the December cold. Glorious.
The Martins are from Piercestown, just a few miles out the road from Wexford town. For the vast majority of their existence, nobody mistook them for a power of Wexford hurling. Their first senior title came in 1999, a full 67 years after they were founded and they’ve been county champions just six times altogether, four of them since 2017. These are the good old days.
“Initially, for the players on the field, there was a lot of emotion, a lot of joy and a lot of tired bodies,” he says. “But the special thing about being in Croke Park is that you look up at the stand and all you see is your own club colours. Every face you look up to is someone you know and someone you can see has a lot of emotion going on straight away.
“It felt like a coming of age for the club. Through all the years and all the efforts of everybody within the club, to see it all come together for one day like that was just very special. When you look up and see so many familiar faces, so many happy people, such emotion, it’s so special.
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“Because the boys winning a Leinster title, it didn’t happen this year or it didn’t happen last year. It happened when they were little lads in the schools in Murntown and Piercestown years ago, playing Rackard League. We were in the schools last week with the trophy and you could see some of those lads on the wall in their gear. And now they’ve gone from that to winning in Croke Park.”
In Wexford, of all places, history never stops talking to itself. When they left Croke Park with the cup, their first stop was the Stillorgan Park Hotel, where their sponsors Pettitts had put on a meal. When they walked in the door, supporters lined the lobby to greet them, just as Hayes and his family and hundreds of delirious Wexford supporters had done in that same hotel in 1996 after Liam Griffin’s team had won the All-Ireland. Hayes was only nine years old at the time but he was brought right back to it instantly.
That they won Leinster was one thing. That they beat Ballyhale Shamrocks to take the title was another entirely. No Wexford club had beaten a Kilkenny club in the competition since 2013 – in Ballyhale’s last two games against Wexford teams, they ran in 11 goals and won by an average of 15 points. Nobody expected the Martins to get filleted like that this time around but actually going and winning the thing was hardly a consensus view either.
And certainly not when Ballyhale looked to have done the Ballyhale thing – and more to the point the Kilkenny thing – by absorbing the best stuff the Martins had to throw at them before righting the ship just in time. The Wexford champions had a four-point lead early in the second half and were always either level or leading after the 40th minute. But two rat-a-tat points as the clock turned 60 pushed Ballyhale ahead.
It looked, not for the first time, like TJ Reid and the boys had hit the front on the perfect stride and would be ridden out to the line with a minimum of fuss. But not this time. Why not?
“Belief,” says Hayes, simply. “The lads are very fit. Even in Wexford, they always finish games strong. You have to be at that level if you’re going to compete with Ballyhale and them going for their 13th title. The most pleasing part of the day was when we went 1-4 to 0-2 down early.
“We gave up that lead very easily – first day in Croke Park, maybe the occasion getting to them. The lads could have crumbled there and then. But they didn’t. They stuck to the way they’ve been playing all year and they hurled very well on the night.
“It was down to the belief that they have at the minute. When Richie Reid scored that point to put Ballyhale one up, I think there was 60 minutes on the clock. How many times have you seen Kilkenny teams do that? Just get the one score that will close the game out. But the lads kept hurling the way we want them to hurl, they still kept believing. When it got to 60, 61 minutes, they still had that attitude of, ‘We can win this’. That’s a credit to themselves, more than anything.”
About time, too. Wexford teams have had a notoriously bad record in the provincial championships, particularly since the turn of the century. The Martins are the first Wexford team to win Leinster since 2016 and only the second since 1999. It’s not like they’ve had a scatter of hard-luck stories either – there have been more clubs from Laois and Carlow in Leinster finals over the past decade than from Wexford.
Broaden it out and you have to go all the way back to 1989 for the only time a Wexford club has carried off an All-Ireland, when Buffers Alley beat O’Donovan Rossa. This has generally not been an arena where Wexford clubs have done themselves justice.
“Yeah, I suppose there’s a couple of aspects to that,” Hayes says. “Oulart had a great team there in the 2010s and they were very unlucky not to win a few more because they had an unbelievable team that time. I think they were in four finals in a row before they got across the line in ’16. But they were really competitive so I don’t think there was ever a mental block there or anything.
“What has definitely made a big difference for us is the change in format of the Wexford championship. For a few years there, we played the hurling championship and then followed it with the football championship and it made it nearly impossible to compete in Leinster on the back of it. The year Ferns won, I think they had the guts of 11 weeks between winning the county final and playing in the first round of Leinster. With the best will in the world, no matter how much training or challenge matches you do, that’s very tough to overcome.
“So changing back for the last couple of years has been a big help to us. You win your own championship and within two of three weeks, you’re straight into Leinster. You still have that momentum going and you’re not going from a standing start. You know you’re going to be able to compete.”
So here they are, a couple of games from going all the way. Needless to say, they aren’t favourites against Ballygunner but then again, they weren’t favourites against either Na Fianna or Ballyhale either. Win on Sunday and they’ll have beaten the winners of five of the past six club All-Irelands to make the final. They’ll surely be favourites then all right.
Whether they do or they don’t, they’ve shortened the winter for themselves and their people. What more could you want in a small parish than to be putting down the weekend before Christmas heading off to an All-Ireland semi-final? Just because the Martins deserve every bit of this doesn’t mean they don’t have to pinch themselves every now and then to make sure it’s real.
“The buzz around the parish is brilliant,” Hayes says. “It just brings the whole community together. And look, that’s probably a cliche when it comes to the GAA. We’re no different to somewhere like Scotstown, I’d say they’re having unbelievable craic up there this week. but it does bring everyone together. The spirit that has been in the club the last few weeks has been incredible.
“And that lifts the lads too. Even in Croke Park the last day, the way half-time is, we had to stay out on the pitch as Ballyhale went down the tunnel. But that meant that we could go in ourselves and the roar from the crowd going in – albeit that it was numerically a small number of people for the size of Croke Park – but the noise they were making would make the hairs stand up on you.
“The way the whole community have got behind the team, it’s given everyone a great lift. Especially in the winter time when there’s not as much craic going on.”
The winter isn’t done yet. The Martins have no interest in it ending either.
