“We had won the Premier 2 at U15 and lost the semi-final then at U16. It was Mallow we played in both of those games but there were a lot of other good teams there too, like Clonakilty and Glanmire.

“We had played Mallow in the league and only won by a point but both teams were missing players so we didn’t know what to expect, really.”

Leading 0-5 to 0-2 at half-time on a dirty night was no guarantee, given Mallow had proven dogged opponents in the past, but the lead was extended before two late goals clinched the win. Given what was at stake and the difficulties posed by nature, it’s little wonder Walsh ranked the performance so highly. “The conditions were so bad and everybody played well together,” he said. “There was nobody trying to do too much individually, everything just fell into place, really. It gave us great confidence then for the hurling. It drove us on to want to do the double.”

While there had been success in football, the underage hurling showings were more frustrating, according to Ballygiblin captain George Pendle. “It was mad winning two in just a couple of weeks,” he said, “a lot of people go their whole lives without winning any.

“In football, we had won a county U15 but in hurling we were able to win in North Cork but hadn’t been able to go on in the county apart from a Féile B. We lost a lot of semi-finals!

Then, having reached the decider, a large lead was coughed up, but the lessons were learned in the replay. “We were up by 10 points early in the second-half but kind of threw it away, so we were a bit nervous ahead of the replay,” Pendle said. “In training, we were saying we had been given a second chance, not many get that opportunity, so we were very keen to take it.”