After the deluge comes the glory for Sarsfields.
It's 19 years since a Cork side trooped out in the All-Ireland club hurling final. In the wake of last October's county decider, you'd have got long-ish odds on that drought not extending to 20.
Bidding for a first ever back-to-back, Sarsfields had built up a six-point half-time lead over Imokilly, the powerful East Cork divisional outfit.
However, on a day when the gale force wind exerted a comically outsized influence, they were overwhelmed after the restart, conceding 10 points on the trot in the final quarter.
It didn't appear the most promising launchpad for a tilt at the Munster and All-Ireland series.
Imokilly, much like your East Kerrys and your South Kerrys in the football, are not eligible to progress to the provincial club phase - four of their starting team were part of Watergrasshill's intermediate All-Ireland winning side. Sars' would go on in 2024-25 although the consensus outside the camp was that morale could hardly be sky high.
Twelve months earlier, they had pipped Midleton to win their first Cork title in nine years. In their Munster opener, with events back at home possibly still clouding their thoughts, they were devoured by Ballygunner in a rain-soaked Walsh Park.
"A few days after the county final, you'd be fairly gutted and disappointed with yourself," Jack O'Connor said to RTÉ Sport this week.
"We went back training on the Saturday and we just kind of said to each other, look, there's no expectation on us at all, from anyone in the country, to get a result in the Munster championship this year.
"So, we kind of went in there with no pressure. We just went in there thinking we'll give it a go and see where it takes us."
Manager Johnny Crowley, in his second stint as manager having previously guided the club to the county title in 2010, has since reflected that his "head could have been on the block" if they'd lost the Munster semi-final to Feakle.
Following a four-week layoff, Crowley made a host of changes, drafting in Colm McCarthy for his first start of the campaign and installing Cillian Roche at centre-back.
McCarthy and Jack O'Connor both struck 0-04, while Aaron Myers rustled up 1-06 from play as Sarsfields won by eight points, remarkably the first time the Cork champions had won a match in the Munster club since Glen Rovers in 2016.
Still, it was assumed they wouldn't be going any further. Ballygunner, seeking a fourth successive Munster crown, had been once again installed as unbackable favourites for the All-Ireland, their semi-final shootout loss to St Thomas' in late 2023 written off as an outlier.
With the general election count ongoing, a shock was in progress in Semple Stadium. The Cork champions got a quick start, Jack O'Connor burying an early goal to put them six in front. They withstood a Ballygunner fightback and found a second wind after Dessie Hutchinson's goal had narrowed the gap to one point.
They maintained a slender advantage for most of a tit-for-tat second half, until the dramatic closing salvo. Shane O'Regan's brace of goals - the first of which owed something to a loose application of the steps rule - effectively settled the contest and while injury-time dragged on longer than they'd have liked, they got home by four.
The semi-final win over Slaughtneil was a bruising, heart-stopping affair. The Ulster champions led by three points with 15 minutes remaining but Sarsfields' quality came to the fore down the stretch, Myers, O'Connor and O'Regan all grabbing vital scores.
The winning position was almost tossed away in the dying seconds. Leading 0-18 to 0-16 deep in injury-time, the defence failed to win a booming Hail Mary ball, Slaughneil seized on possession, it was fed to an unmarked Mark McGuigan, less than 10 yards out, and his flicked snap-shot just cleared the crossbar.
Slaughtneil players sunk to their knees while Sarsfields players and mentors cast their eyes skyward in thanks.
The club were surely due some karmic reward in any case.
They generated viral headlines a year earlier in the days after their county title victory in 2023. With Storm Babet wreaking havoc around Cork, generating one of those periodic floods that afflict the city and surrounding area, the Sarsfields board were presented with an awful choice.
As Glanmire was among the areas worst hit, they took the decision to open their clubhouse gates and allow their pitch become a floodplain to spare the wider community in the area.
Three-time All-Ireland winner and former RTÉ analyst Tomás Mulcahy captured the scene as it was occurring.
2 days ago , place was packed with supporters after their county final success - now how can this happen ?? pic.twitter.com/mBnoY1s202
— Tomas Mulcahy (@tomas_mulcahy) October 18, 2023
"We won a county, lost a pitch but hopefully saved a part of the Glanmire community," the club said in a statement.
As a result, Sarsfields spent the early part of 2024 relying on the generosity of neighbouring clubs for training fields. Fourteen months later, the reconstruction work is almost finished.
A combination of insurance and government help enabled them to install a new sand-based pitch. The gym has been re-fitted with new equipment. The astroturf surface has been smoothed out and repaired.
Sarsfields Hurling Club, winners of Cork's Premier Senior Hurling Championship on Sunday, have seen their home pitch flooded by Storm Babet. pic.twitter.com/5g87JXacPP
— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) October 18, 2023
"It was a tough time for some people back home in the club," said O'Connor this week. "Houses being flooded and cars being destroyed. It was only in the few days after that you saw the amount of people who were out in the street helping to clean it all up.
"You see the bond that was created in the whole community. That's just been strengthened every week since last year. And now with the buzz around getting to the All-Ireland club final, it's gone bigger again."
Sarsfields had suffered worse heartache in recent years. In June 2023, club and county legend Teddy McCarthy, forever immortalised thanks to events in 1990, died aged just 57. In August, former player and mentor Conor McCarthy, father of Cork star Cathal, passed away after an illness.
Of the late Slaughtneil goal chance in the semi-final, Crowley said afterwards, "Maybe it was Teddy blew it over the bar as opposed to them putting it over."
Victory over Na Fianna on Sunday would see Sarsfields become the first club to win the All-Ireland in either code having not won their county title that season.
It would also bring an end to Cork's long lean spell in the All-Ireland club series, a competition in which they enjoyed a complete stranglehold back in its early days.
The Cork city trio of Blackrock, St Finbarr's and Glen Rovers dominated the nascent All-Ireland club series back in its inaugural decade in the 1970s, winning all bar of two of the first nine titles between 1971 and 1979. There was no reason to suppose things wouldn't carry on in that vein.
In 1981, the 'Barr's were seeking an unprecedented All-Ireland double in hurling and football, but were foiled in the hurling by a recently amalgamated entity from rural Kilkenny, Ballyhale Shamrocks, all of whose scores in the final came courtesy of chaps with the surname 'Fennelly'.
A new era had dawned and the regal Cork city clubs lost their pre-eminence. Over the next 40+ years, Cork would claim just five Munster club titles. The Cork senior championship's claims to being 'the little All-Ireland' are these days freighted with ironic bravado rather than any sense of genuine superiority.
John Fenton's Midleton side picked up a couple of titles in the 1980s, winning the All-Ireland in 1988. After the entirely barren 1990s, the O'Connor brothers' Newtownshandrum side arrived in the 2000s, overcoming Dunloy to win the 2004 All-Ireland title.
Two years later, they were back in another decider against Portumna. A 17-year old Joe Canning struck 1-06, equaling Newtwonshandrum's entire tally in a very low-scoring encounter. No Cork side has been back since.
But this Sarsfields generation, having weathered storms, literal and otherwise, have already broken new ground in 2024-25.
