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Newmarket-on-Fergus 1-16 – Clarecastle 2-06 at Clareabbey

NEIGHBOURS Newmarket and Clarecastle have had some memorable county final clashes in the last 50 years and while this wasn’t one of them, the Blues deservedly maintained their final hold over the Magpies.

This was the 14th county final derby meeting between the pair in that period, with Newmarket proving to be the Magpies bogey side on 12 occasions and while it wasn’t the county final that both sides would have aspired to at the beginning of the year, it still attracted a sizeable crowd.

Newmarket were full value for their latest title after sowing the seeds of victory in a clinical opening half display that saw them score the first six points of the game by the 30th minute. As ever, central to that scoring feat was county senior Colin Ryan who gave an exhibition of placed balls over the hour in an unerring mix of frees, ‘65’s and a late lineball.

Indeed, while his team-mates opted to try and kill off their opponents early with goals that was met with defiance from goalkeeper Donnagh Murphy and some dogged defending from the Magpies’s last line, Ryan’s experience in tacking on points saw him pick up the first five scores of the game, four of those from placed balls.

Jonathan Clancy had Clarecastle’s best chance of a goal but after being put under pressure, his effort hit the side netting. David Barrett put the Blues six clear in the 30th minute but the Magpies did spare themselves from an opening half whitewash two minutes into injury-time when Eamon Callinan converted a free from 35 metres.

Newmarket came storming out of the blocks once more on the restart, with county seniors Colin Ryan (2) and an inspirational long-range James McInerney point from 65 metres extending their advantage to eight by the 34th minute.

The game seemed to be drifting away from Clarecastle but they received a major shot in the arm with two quick-fire goals in as many minutes to make a contest of it once more. The first stemmed from a Darragh Moloney delivery that was broke by Derek Quinn to the unmarked Danny Scanlon who had the simple task of hitting to an empty net. And only two minutes later, a slice of fortune got the Magpies to within two points of their opponents when a Derek Quinn shot for a point rebounded off the upright into the path of Darragh Moloney to pull past goalkeeper Kieran Devitt.

The intensity was lifted once more and the Blues almost replied in kind but David Barrett hit his goalbound effort into the ground, although Colin Ryan did point the rebound.

With the bit between their teeth however, Clarecastle hit back once more, this time a superb solo effort from captain Tyrone Kearse who gathered possession on his own ’65 before soloing to halfway and arrowing over the bar.

Game on it appeared but Newmarket ruthlessly shut the door on their neighbours around the turn of the final quarter when an Anthony Kilmartin goal was sandwiched by Colin Ryan frees to restore a seven point lead.

Clarecastle kept plugging away with Eamon Callinan picking off three frees to cut the deficit to five with seven minutes remaining. However, the Blues finished the job when Ryan expertly cut a sideline over the bar followed by two successive Anthony Kilmartin points to complete their A, B and C hat-trick of adult titles.

Although the Canon Hamilton still eludes them, Newmarket are certainly moving in the right direction as their adult teams won championships this year in Junior A, Senior B and Junior C. And with a Clare Cup semifinal against Kilmaley this weekend, the push to make next year’s Senior A county final is already gathering momentum.

WAY back in 1980 Éire Óg hurling really started to roar as the mercurial Martin Nugent enjoyed his finest hour when bagging 3-3 in a senior county final win over the storied Newmarket-on-Fergus Blues.

Now, along with younger brother Tony, who was also a key member of that Éire Óg Dalcassians team winning team 31 years ago that ush ered in a great era for the game in the county capital, he’s brought the Townie roar back to life.

Who knows? Another great era, could be at hand!

All because such was the cacophony of sound that greeted this com- prehensive county final success, the enthusiasm and the language afterwards, you know this was just a start.

“We wanted to get Éire Óg back up playing senior hurling,” roared Martin Nugent above the din and beside the rolling maul – it would have done the All Blacks proud earlier in their World Cup final day in Auckland – that was just starting to gather momentum.

“We met in the Queen’s Hotel in January with all the guys. That’s when this started. We just laid out a plan that this is where we wanted to be – to be in the county final and winning it and to be back up playing senior hurling.

“They key for us this year was that everyone believed in one another. Everyone on the panel believed. We really believed and we kept the focus on hurling. It was hurling all the way, all year.

“We had to have experience with youth and that’s the way we set up. The likes of Fergus Flynn, Tadhg MacNamara, Marc O’Donnell, Barry Nugent had the experience – then the younger lads like Davie O’Halloran, Tommy Downes and more added a huge amount.”

Nugent wasn’t bothered by the change of venue from Cusack Park to Clarecastle that was confirmed just after 11am, something he revealed was drilled into the players all the week and something they were prepared for.

“It’s a game of hurling,” he said. “It’s on a pitch. It doesn’t matter where it’s played. This pitch is as good as Cusack Park and we didn’t mind where the game was played. We were ready for the game anywhere and that showed early on.

“We said it to them before the game that ‘we’re going to take it to Ruan from the opening minutes’. We weren’t going to wait for Ruan to start hurling. We were going to do the hurling and start well.

“We had that drilled into them, that we were going to determine the pace of the game we wanted to play. From the word that’s the way they did it. They did what we wanted.

“We have always said that we take our games in half an hour stages. The first half – we said ‘let’s go out and see if we can win that half’.

We got them in the dressing room and we said ‘let’s go and see if we can do the same’. We did that and it’s great to be back up playing senior hurling.

“There are a lot of people that need a lot of credit for this. You have the likes of John Russell, Colm Mahon, Deccie Coote – lads that were there before we came in this year. They were there and were unlucky not to get them up before this, but we’re up now and we’re going to enjoy it.”

They were enjoying it already.

Éire Óg 1-14 – Ruan 0-06 at Clarecastle

THE last time the Townies were roaring hot favourites to take down Ruan in a county final was way back in ’59, but they failed to land the Canon Hamilton Cup on the back of yet another tour de force from Jimmy Smyth, Frank Custy, Jazzer Meaney et al.

Ruan would have needed Smyth, Custy, Jazzer et al at their pomp on this day, such was the superiority exerted by this Éire Óg team that produced a command performance to win their first ever intermediate hurling title and return to the senior ranks after a three-year hiatus.

The rains came – to Cusack Park that saw the game relocated to Clarecastle, but the downpour failed to dampen the Townies’ spirits at they hacked home through the mud like rare breeds of thoroughbreds made for the heavy going.

It was a Eureka moment for Ennis hurling, simply because this victory finally banished the ghosts of the quarter-final defeats to Whitegate and Killanena in the last two years and their relegation at the hands of Ballyea on this same Clarecastle sod back in 2008.

That they really meant business here was reflected in the 11-point margin at the end, but it was apparent from the opening seconds as a thunderous shoulder charge by captain Mark Fitzgerald spoke volumes, for the team and for the mindset.

This was for Francie Mahon, for the Town, but above all for themselves.

They were in the mood, up for the battle as well as the hurling and from there a combination of superior stickwork, physicality and work-rate powered them to their best display of the year.

It may have been a lottery at times, given the conditions, but Éire Óg’s numbers always came up thanks to an imperious half-back line of Tadhg McNamara, Fergus Flynn and Kevin Moynihan, an industrious midfield and a forward division that buzzed through the rain to notch up the points to kill this county final early in the second half.

They got the perfect start with three points inside seven minutes – David O’Halloran and Ronan Keane were on the mark from play while Danny Russell, who notched 0-5 over the hour from placed balls, landed a free.

However, it was Barry Nugent’s 13th minute goal that proved crucial. After John Punch had opened Ruan’s account with a ninth minute free, Nugent’s deft flick to the net from a long Fergus Flynn free put the Townies 1-3 to 0-1 ahead and well on their way to victory.

They only managed two more points in the half, via a Danny Russell free in the 23rd minute and a good effort from play by Thomas Downes, but it was enough to give them a 1-5 to 0-3 lead as a sterling defence restricted Ruan to a couple of points from Patrick Keegan midway through the half and another on the stroke of half-time from Aidan Lynch.

A point from Caimin Howard two minutes into the second half brought the gap back to four points, but the Townies’ response again showed their intent as points from play by Noel Whelan and Barry Nugent by the 35th minute put them 1-7 to 0-4 clear.

From there they never looked like yielding – with points from Tadhg Hanrahan and Eoin Hanrahan all Ruan could muster for the remaining 25 minutes as the Townies coasted home.

Danny Russell’s 65 in the 38th minute restored their six-point advantage after Eoin Hanrahan had pegged one back for Ruan two minutes earlier – from there it was just a matter of seeing it out.

They did that in some style, with David Ryan’s booming effort in the 39th minute putting them seven clear, while they finished the game with five unanswered points as they restricted a forlorn Ruan outfit to a Tadhg Hanrahan point in the 42nd minute.

By the time Danny Russell (2), Ronan Keane, David O’Halloran and David Ryan added points to embellish the hour, there were actual fireworks going off at the venue to the delight of the huge Éire Óg support.

Why not? It’s Halloween week after all.

Éire Óg
Kevin Brennan (7), Cathal Whelan (7), Cormac O’Regan (7), Marc O’Donnell (7),Tadhg MacNamara (8), Fergus Flynn (9), Kevin Moynihan (8), Noel Whelan (7) (0-1), Mark Fitzgerald (8), Danny Russell (8) (0-5, 4f, one 65), David Ryan (8) (0-2), Ronan Keane (7) (0-2), David O’Halloran (7) (0-2), Barry Nugent (7) (1-1),Thomas Downes (7) (0-1).

Subs
AdrianWalsh (6) for Noel Whelan [56 Mins], Ronan Cooney (6) for Cathal Whelan [61 Mins].

Ruan
Patrick Roughan (7), Gary Bell (7), Niall O’Connor (7), Leon Quirke (6), Killian Ryan (6), Jonathon Clohessy (7), Darragh Roughan (6),Tadhg Hanrahan (7) (0-1), Eoin Hanrahan (7) (0-1),Aidan Lynch (7) (0-2), Colin O’Donoghue (6), Michael Vaughan (6), Patrick Keegan (6), John Punch (6) (0-1f), Brendan Lyons (6).

Subs
Caimin Howard (7) (0-1) for Roughan [8 Mins],Alan Bell (6) for Punch [42 Mins].

Man of the Match
Fergus Flynn (Éire Óg) Referee Johnny Healy (Smith O’Briens)

THIS must have been a dream come through for Kilmurry Ibrickane star player Ian McInerney. Of course he has seen it all before but the feeling of bringing Jack Daly home and putting another county medal in your back pocket never gets old. Add in scoring a variety of brilliant free kicks with a hundred percent accuracy and scoop- ing the man of the match award this day could not have gone better for the forward with a number seven jersey on his back.

“It’s absolutely great. It’s wonderful. Our experience was definitely a huge help to us today. We really wanted this so bad. We hadn’t really played well this year so we really wanted to put in a great performance today. We have a great bunch of lads there.”

Leading on a score of 0-8 to no score at the interval must have left the possibility of complacency setting in after the restart. How was such a scenario prevented from happening?

“We just said at half time that we’d have to keep going and really drive it on. We’ve had early leads in the past and let them go and ended up in a dogfight so we didn’t want that to happen all over again. So we did what we planned and kept driving on.

“It’s a great day for Kilmurry Ibrickane especially all of our supporters. We really had great support again today so it was nice to earn the win for them.”

One very important supporter was missing from the stands for McInerney but she was very much in his thoughts and acted as the inspiration for his incredible county final day performance.

“Unfortunately my girlfriend is in hospital at the moment. She is very sick so I tried my best to put in a bit of performance for her today.”

Well he certainly managed to that and as well as doing her proud he surely was and will be the toast of many supporters in the barony for the weeks of celebrations ahead.

JOHN Kennedy may only have linked up with Kilmurry Ibrickane with the first rays of summer, but you could say that he goes back a long way with the club that’s only a scenic boat ride from Asdee around Loophead to Quilty.

All because, back in 2004 when Clare had its biggest football day of the new millennium by beating Sligo by 1-11 to 0-11 in the inaugural Tommy Murphy Cup for the All-Ireland B Championship, Kilmurry provided more to Banner side than any other club.

Dermot O’Brien, Odran O’Dwyer, Enda Coughlan and Evan Talty saw action that day seven years ago – for Kennedy’s second coming as a championhip winner in Clare the latter three were still invovled.

As Kennedy peeled away from the throng after the final whistle, he was just happy to be part of it all, having been drafted into the backroom team after his commitments with the Kerry under 21s were over with and in Kilmurry’s hour of need.

“It’s a great day for Kilmurry, it’s a great day for the parish, it’s a great day for everyone involved in the team,” he says.

“We have worked really hard for this. This was a job started off by Ger Lawlor, Joe Hurley and Patrick Murrihy. I came in in May.

“These guys are fantastic. They worked extremely hard in the time I’ve been with them and before that. I would say we have been threatening a display like this for some time and today everything seemed to come right for us.

“We said to ourselves beforehand ‘this is their first county final, we need to start well’.

“We have started well in a lot of games, but haven’t been carrying it on. Today we did, we got the scores on the board early and kicked on from there and weren’t going to let them back into it.

We worked extremely hard over the past few weeks. We were creating the chances in previous games, we just weren’t taking them. It would be a lot more worrying if we weren’t taking the chances. We had to turn more of our possessions into scores. Today we did that. We only ended up with six wides in 60 minutes. That’s a good return.”

With that Kennedy is swept away by well-wishers. Job done. Jack Daly heading for the Hand, with Kennedy preparing for night in Quilty as the most prized possession in Clare football heads for what has been it’s favourite home since the new millennium dawned.

Cratloe 2-10 – Ennistymon 2-7 at Cusack Park, Ennis

CRATLOE deserved this.

On the year for what they’ve been through in football and hurling, but above all on the day because when you parse what was a hugely entertaining decider that was in the balance until the end it was the boys in blue who produced when it mattered most.

A wonder goal from Michael O’Dwyer in the 40th minute that would have done his famous namesake from the Iveragh peninsula proud seemed to have set Ennistymon up for back-to-back titles.

It put them 2-6 to 1-6 clear, but crucially Ennistymon’s final score of the hour came via a 43rd minute free from Danny Rouine – from there it was all Cratloe as they turned the screw by hitting 1-3 without reply to win their second title in three years.

It was as if the realisation of another defeat – to go with the under 21 hurling final, as well as senior semi-finals in both codes – that would usher in their annus horribilis sparked them to life.

Something did, because in those closing stages, key players like Liam Markham, Padraig Collins and Conor McGrath stepped up to save day, as did the youngest member of the team David Collins with a 49th minute goal that gave Cratloe a lead they never looked like losing.

In a way that crucial goal was in keeping with the day, as the game swung like a pendulum for the most of the hour before Cratloe finally broke free and broke Ennistymon’s spirit at the death.

It was going Ennistymon’s way in the early stages, with two early points Sean McConigley and Danny Rouine by the third minute was followed up by a tenth minute goal after Conor McGrath had opened Cratloe’s account in the seventh minute. The goal came from a penalty coolly sidefooted home by McConigley after he had been fouled by keeper Jamie Joyce.

However, just when it seemed as if Ennistymon might kick on from this dream start of being 1-2 to 0-1 up, back came Cratloe with a goal from Conor McGrath inside a minute when he fly-hacked to the net after David Collins’ effort came back off the post.

So began this gripping encounter. Cathal McInerney and Danny Rouine traded frees by the 20th minute be- fore produced a rousing finish to the half with three brilliantly taken points from play to lead by 1-5 to 1-3 at half-time. Padraig Collins grabbed the first in the 21st minute before two booming efforts from midfielder Wesley Deloughery gave Colm Collins’ charged their two-point lead.

That finish was a portent of things to come but when Ennistymon made a blistering start to the second half when putting 1-3 on the board inside the first ten minutes it seemed as if the Marrinan Cup was heading for the town of the cascades for the second successive year.

Cathal Malone got them going with a point, while they then hit back after a Cathal McInerney free with points from Michael McDonagh and an inspirational effort from centreback Sean O’Driscoll before Michael O’Dwyer tore up the left wing and floated a brilliant goal into the top corner of the net to put his side a goal clear.

For a few moments it looked as if Cratloe would fade away, but by the 50th minute everything had changed.

Frees by Cathal McInerney and Liam Markham that sandwiched a Danny Rouine effort for Ennistymon was followed by another great goal strike, this time from David Collins when he blasted to the net after Noel Sexton had failed to collected Wesley Deloughery’s high lobbing ball.

Cratloe never looked back with points by Cathal McInerney and Wesley Deloughery closing out the game.

IF ever we wondered how defeat can bring out the greatness in a team, just look at Kilmurry Ibrickane.

You know the scéal. Kilmurry a goal up on Doonbeg in last year’s semi-final on the cusp of the last ten minutes. Then bang. David Tubridy shaking the rigging with a goal. Then Enda Doyle shooting for the stars with a point.

The response from Kilmurry, as midfielder Paul O’Connor reveals seconds after the final whistle is to dwell on defeat for a few months, then return to training in January and go through the year unbeaten.

That’s greatness. That’s hunger. That’s Kilmurry.

“After the high of March and reaching an All-Ireland club final to be beaten in a county semi-final we should probably have won,” he recalls. “I think it refocused us. We got an extra few months off – it focused everyone as a group.”

“Any time you get beaten you’re going to come back the following year and prove a point,” says Enda Coughlan. “We had a tough enough run when getting to the All-Ireland It was tough enough on the legs and maybe in fairness to Doonbeg, they beat us fair and square last year and maybe we didn’t just have it in the legs in the last ten minutes, but we were very hungry this year,” he adds.

“Ger (Lawlor) came in and John (Kennedy) then came and this group of 30 have trained really hard since January 1, the first day we trained. We really wanted it this year, we wanted it badly,” continues O’Connor.

“Our game plan was to hit them early and get a couple of scores on the board. It was their first final, so we wanted those early scores. Luckily for us they went over. Ian McInerney had a couple of super kicks early in the second half and they settled us down. We had a strategy and it seemed to work for us. We created a lot of space and we got scores from it.

“I wouldn’t say we were more up for this game than we were for the Cratloe or Cooraclare games, it’s just that we decided that we wouldn’t be kicking from the positions we kicked from against Cratloe and Cooraclare. We worked the ball in a bit closer to lads who found their range a bit better today.”

It all means that 31-year-old O’Connor now has four county medals – he missed out on the win in ’04 when he was playing his ball in Van Cortland Park in New York and not Páirc Naomh Mhuire in downtown Quilty.

“They’re all sweet,” he says. “Every medal you add, especially when you’re pushing up the years like me, is sweet, but this one really is especially after what happened to us last year.”

Hunger is the best sauce.

Kilmurry Ibrickane bare testimony to that.

St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield will hope to in time after this huge learning curve.

“IT’S going to be hard to keep a few of the lads out of the pub after this!” Kilmurry Ibrickane’s Declan Callinan was readying himself for the inevitable party zones at The Hand, McCarthy’s of Coore, The Quilty Tavern and wherever else porter is being served in the parish of the 2011 senior football county champions.

“Yeah it’s brilliant stuff alright. It’s such a fantastic feeling. We said all week that we would work hard for each other and keep our focus.

“We weren’t playing well all year but we knew there was a big performance in us and all we had to do today was to bring it out and thank God we did just that.”

The half time position of utter dominance was unexpected so how was this victory going to be seen out without any lack of concentration?

“We wanted to start the second half again as if it was nil all and to keep our focus and to keep working hard for each other.

“Thankfully it paid off for us in the end. It was such a great result in the end.”

So what next for this terrific generation of footballers who have been the standardbearers of the Clare club scene for the last decade. Their historic 12th Jack Daly will be celebrated but then what?

“Yeah as I said it’s going to be very difficult to keep the lads out of the pub alright but seriously we will enjoy this week but then our thoughts will quickly turn back to Munster.

“We’ll start doing our homework the week after and then really get stuck into it again like.”

The ‘Bricks will without doubt give a Munster campaign a serious rattle and even now there is a sense that this won’t be the last occasion when the bonfires will be burning back west.

Anyone up for a St Paddy’s Day in Dublin did I hear them say? That’s part of the grand plan. They’re now in a position to go in that direction.

A HUGE smile was etched upon the delighted face of Colm Collins after Cratloe’s hard-fought 2-10 to 2-7 victory over Ennistymon in the curtain raiser of county final day last Sunday afternoon. The U21 manager had experienced a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the match as he watched on from the stands due to a recent suspension but he could not hide his excitement in the surroundings of the post-match celebrations.

“I am absolutely thrilled with them. They are a fantastic bunch of lads. They are never beaten and they never lay down.

“The game ebbed and flowed. It was a fantastic match. A lot of good players were playing out there with Ennistymon too. We’re absolutely delighted to have won it.”

Trailing by two points midway through the second half a Cratloe goal completed a dramatic turnaround which incredibly saw his side find a two point lead of their own in a matter of minutes. Collins agreed that this was the match changing moment.

“That was the big difference. It was very important to get that score. We needed to put the pressure on as another score for them would have put them out of sight.

“As I said there is a great spirit in these lads and they’re never beating. The only time they are beaten is when they’re on the road home.

“The level of football they have been playing all year is very important. The higher the level you play the better you should get. We were very disappointed with the senior but next year is another year so hopefully we can go one better then. We have to try and get to a county senior final and that’s the next step. Please God we can eventually do that.”

Very few would be surprised if that does in fact materialize in the near future. A heartbreaking semi-final loss to eventual county champions Kilmurry Ibrickane by a single point illustrates how bright the future of Cratloe football could be in the following seasons.

The task of curtain raiser could well be replaced by a starring role in next year’s footballing showpiece event. This victory has to be enjoyed first but the dream for senior glory starts now!