Wexford star Rory O'Connor says St Martin's are determined to have "a right crack" at record winners Ballyhale Shamrocks when they contest their first Leinster club SHC final next weekend.
The men from Piercestown, eight kilometres south of Wexford town, had 11 points to spare over Naas in yesterday's semi-final, and become the first club from their county to contest a provincial decider since Oulart-The Ballagh in 2013.
Standing in their way though, are the 12-time Leinster and nine-time All-Ireland winners, back in the final after a two-year absence.
"It's unbelievable," forward O'Connor told RTÉ Sport after the 0-21 to 0-11 win that booked their ticket to Croke Park. "We're bringing our parish up to headquarters.
"The club have never been in a Leinster final before. The club have never played in Croke Park before. This team won the first back-to-back for the club there back a few weeks ago we're certainly creating a little bit of history for the club and long may it continue.
"We're delighted we're bringing the club to Croke Park against Ballyhale. We're going to give it a right crack now on Saturday week.
"There'll be a few things [to work on] but they're all small things. I don't think you can fault the work rate of the lads. All over the pitch, we fought for every ball, lots of rucks that we never gave up on."
The forward also revealed that he "sadly" prefers winter hurling.
"It's just really dogged. It's a mentality thing, tactics really go out the window. You really only think about 10% setting up and structure, and stuff like that, 80% of it is mindset and tackling, work-rate, being a dog out there.
"Then it's all the more special when you're doing it for your club, all the people around here, it makes it that little bit more special.
Ballyhale boss Henry Shefflin described their final opponents as "looking very, very progressive. We do know the challenge that we'll face. They've really turned this championship very strong.
"I know a lot of our lads have played there a lot, but it's a great opportunity for every club to get that opportunity to play in Croke Park, and in a Leinster final."
The Kilkenny great admitted his side "made hard work" of beating Laois champions Clough-Ballacolla 1-18 to 1-15 in their semi-final, pointing to injuries and a strong showing from the underdogs.
"There's an expectation of being heavily favourites, and does that seep into it?"
"Our play was slow, the conditions were sticky, and we made the game very sticky for ourselves.
"There were probably distractions with one of the lads getting married this week and stuff like that. All those factors come into it. We've a couple coming back from injury, we'd lost a couple, you're making changes, so there's a lot of that.
"But I will go back to Clough-Ballacolla and give them a lot of credit for it. The way they hurled, and they just were very aggressive in everything they did, and rightly so."
Shefflin expects Ballyhale will need to raise their game to beat St Martin's, who knocked out All-Ireland champions Na Fianna in the quarter-finals.
"That performance will not win a Leinster Championship, and we know that," he said.
"The first half against Kilcormac [in the quarter-final] wasn't great, today wasn't great, so it's been just a sticky period for ourselves. And to be fair, there's a lot of strapping [on players], and physios are very busy getting lads out to play.
"But look, we still won the game, and if you'd asked me that this morning, I would have taken your hand [off].
"Obviously, it made it very uncomfortable on the line, but I'm delighted that the lads did show that character to grind it out, and that's what we had to do."
Shamrocks will definitely be without Adrian Mullen (above, C), who Shefflin confirmed had his thumb broken by a "dirty belt" at the final whistle of the win over KIlcormac-Killoughey, which sparked a melee and led to the arrest of a spectator.
"Very upsetting for Adrian, he was on a good thing," said the manager. "I don't mind a lad getting an injury off something fair, it was just dirty to be fair, and that has had an impact on him. He's broken his thumb and he's got pins in it. Paddy, his brother, has hurt his foot.
"One of the other chaps has gone off to Australia, another chap got married, so we had four members of our 20 that came on in the county final not here today.
"But look, everyone is the same, so we just rock on with it."
