HURLING manager of the year for the fourth time. It’s not quite an annual occurrence, but it’s not far off it for Sleacht Néill hurling chief Michael McShane.

Sleacht Néill have become the dominant force in Ulster under his tenure, and they claimed their fourth title in fifth years with a massively well-deserved victory over Ballycran last Winter.

McShane has done a remarkable job at the helm since 2015, but he admits it was still something of a surprise to pick up his latest award at last Friday’s awards night.

“[Fellow nominees] Paul Cunningham and Ryan Lynch had both done great jobs with their clubs Craobh Rua and Banagher so I didn’t expect to win that tonight, but I’m delighted to get it. But these individual awards are really about who you have around you as a manager, so I pick this award up on behalf of everybody on Sleacht Néill hurling management team. The six men around me do just as much work as me and I’m just the lad who is in front of it all.”

Sleacht Néill have a target on their backs as the dominant force in Ulster, but they’re always able to rise to the challenge and were surprisingly comfortable victors in their eagerly anticipated semi-final clash against Antrim heavy hitters Loughgiel. At the same time, they never take anything for granted, even in the county arena.

McShane said: “We are seen as the dominant force now and rightly so as we’ve won four of the last five Ulster championships, and we lost the final before that by a point after extra-time to Cushendall.

“We’re the leading hurling team in Ulster and every year when we went the competition, everyone’s trying to beat us and we’ve been able to handle that well. We’ve two titles to retain if we want to go to the national level, Derry comes first and it’s never easy as well.”

But that breakthrough on the national stage has proven elusive and they fell narrowly short against eventual All-Ireland champions Ballygunner in last season’s semi-final clash. Next year, they go again.

“If we didn’t believe we could make the breakthrough thent we may as well put the sticks in the cupboard and forget about it.

“We’ve been there three or four occasions now and haven’t got over the line. This year especially we really believed we were good enough to win it and we didn’t, so we need to find somehwere where we can improve and find those extra percentages. The one thing about this group of lads is that they’ll never give up.”