![\"23](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0023860d-614.jpg\"\/)
\nNaas have dominated in Kildare, but Leinster has been too hard a nut to crack at senior level<\/p>\n
Former Kilkenny under-20 boss Mark Dowling has been appointed manager of the Naas senior hurling team.<\/p>\n
From the Dicksboro Club in Kilkenny, Dowling served as Kilkenny U20 boss from 2023 to 2025, winning the 2025 Leinster title.<\/p>\n
The Cats were runners-up in last year’s championship, eventually falling to Tipperary in the All-Ireland final.<\/p>\n
Cian Treacy from Thurles Sarsfields will take up the role of head coach.<\/p>\n
Treacy most recently coached Offaly\u2019s Kilcormac-Killoughey and has previously worked with Dowling as both coach of the Kilkenny U20 and Thurles Sarsfields senior hurling sides.<\/p>\n
Dowling and Treacy will replace former Naas manager Tom Mulally and head coach Christy Kealy whose reign saw the team land six Kildare Senior hurling titles in a row, one Leinster IHC and an All-Ireland IHC.<\/p>\n
New manager Dowling has also enjoyed success on the club scene.<\/p>\n
He managed Dicksboro senior hurling team from 2017 to 2020, winning theKilkenny title in 2017. He led them to county senior league titles in 2017, 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n
Dowling also managed Thurles Sarsfields’ senior hurling team from 2021 to 2022, winning a mid-Tipperary title in his first year and bringing the team to the county final a year later.<\/p>\n
\nNaas have dominated in Kildare, but Leinster has been too hard a nut to crack at senior level<\/p>\n
Liam Hennessy, chairperson of Naas hurling, wished the pair and their coaching team success for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n
Naas have dominated Kildare hurling in recent seasons, and this year won their seventh successive county senior title by beating a hard-working Maynooth side.<\/p>\n
But despite some early promise pushing on in Leinster hasn\u2019t been easy.<\/p>\n
In 2022, they put up a spirited fight against Ballyhale Shamrocks at Croke Park in the Leinster semi-final.<\/p>\n
A year later, they again fought hard before losing by three points to Na Fianna – again at the provincial semi-final stage.<\/p>\n
For the past two seasons, they have been thwarted by Wexford champions St Martin’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Kilkenny under-20 boss Mark Dowling has been appointed manager of the Naas senior hurling team. From the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-226059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}