Author: admin

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!

SURROUNDED by a green and red wave of congratulating supporters Evan Talty could not contain his excitement and enthusiasm.

“It’s absolutely brilliant now. We did what we set out to do,” he says above the din and through the crowd. “We had a very good quick start. We knew it was Barefield’s first final and since we had a bit of experience, the only way we could put that to use was to get that quick start we wanted and thankfully we did that.

“I think in fairness the game in many ways was over at halftime. When we came out and got the first score of the second half we were confident enough that we would hold out then.

“I suppose in most games we start well like we did against Cooraclare and Cratloe but then in most of those games we seemed to die down after that. We get on top and then we seem to relax. We said one thing today that we wouldn’t relax and stop playing. We’d drive on and get the next score, the next score and the next score.

“In fairness to Barefield they had a great year but I suppose it happened to us in our first year in Croke Park as well. We got caught in the headlights and I think the same thing happened to them today but they will be back again,” he adds.

Obviously a week of celebrations is around the corner but winning a county title for this amazing group of players is just not enough. A campaign in Munster and maybe even further is surely at the back of their minds already.

“We will relax now for a while anyway. I think it’s five weeks until Munster for us. We’ll enjoy this week but then we will be back down to work again. We’ll have another big job to do then. We really want to get back to where we we’re two years ago and hopefully finish off what we started.”

THE Clare County Board has pledged to establish a seven-man committee to examine the management of club fixtures in the county for 2012, with the new blueprint devised between now and the County Convention in December where delegates can accept or reject its contents.

This commitment to look at the possibility of change came after O’Curry’s delegate Michael Curtin hit out at the fact that club players are left without games for much of the summer months.

“I want test the waters,” said Curtin. “We’re now in October and we’re reviewing our competitions. What I’m talking about is a lack of competition for most clubs that I am very, very concerned about.

“You’re talking about promoting the game, but if you don’t play your hurling and football in the best part of the year? What I’m asking the meeting is: have we got the ability to think outside the box?

“What I would be suggesting would be that a powerful committee would be set up between now and Convention to look at the whole area of competition and structures and fixtures going forward.

“Effectively what I’m saying is that the way our competitions are run, at all levels,

should be looked at. I think there should be a proposal put as to how they should be structured to give our clubs meaningful competitions throughout 2012 and onwards,” he added.

The O’Curry’s delegate said that the hiatus in the summer months where many clubs are left was having “a very, very serious effect on the promotion of our games” and that change should be brought in on an experiment basis to avoid players being lost to other codes.

“It’s just to see if there is feel for taking some action going forward with regard to our competition,” he said. “We have to take a risk and be for the common good to get our players playing football – unpalatable decisions may have to be taken by clubs for the common good going forward, because as it is at the minute, it’s not good and is not doing anything for our games.

“If nothing happens in the best ten weeks of the year, your greatest coach, or a Director of Hurling or a Director of Football is wasting his time. Come before Convention with a blueprint as to the best way forward to incorporate all of us.

“If it means starting our competitions at the end of January, so be it. If it means playing championship in April, so be it. Managers of senior teams will have to be brought in. We are going to have to get some sort of structure that would be rigid,” he added.

Responding, county board secretary Pat Fitzgerald said “we are hamstrung by the national fixtures. There is no question about it. That doesn’t say we can’t look at altering the make-up or the structure of competitions and do the thing another way.

“All Michael Curtin is saying is that we look at it. Get a report done and look at it, and if we’re not happy with it, we don’t implement it,” he added.

“The ‘Bridge had a great motion to Convention in relation to the hurling championship,” said chairman Michael O’Neill.

“I don’t think it got the recognition it deserved at Convention. Maybe it might come back and it’s something that should be considered . I’m not saying that it should be implemented, but it certainly should be looked at,” he added.

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.

WHAT COULD he really say?

St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield selector James Hanrahan had just witnessed his beloved club suffer a heartbreaking county final day defeat and the losing margin of twelve points certainly did not make it any easier.

The players who had served him so well this year were distraught and at the point of breaking as they painfully watched the Kilmurry Ibrickane celebrations explode around them. A disappointed but proud Hanrahan still had a trickle of optimism in his post-match analysis.

“Look we didn’t perform at all on the day. Fair play to Kilmurry they really played a great brand of football. They really showed us how to do it out there. We just couldn’t get our hand on the ball so what could we do?

“Of course there experience was huge for them and after all this was our first final but we’re hugely disappointed now. This is not the end though and for sure we’ll come back. We’ll be back again next year. We’ll be there or there abouts again. This year has been a huge learning curve for us and the experience we got out there today can only stand to us again in the future.”

Amid the many offers of condolence from members of both clubs players and fans alike his never quelling pride and honour returned again when talking about the younger members of the club and the bright footballing future they can possess.

“We have some very young players involved and they can only get better from games like this. They are young so they will obviously be very disappointed and it will take time to get over this loss but they will get over it eventually. We will rally again and this won’t be the case of a one and only appearance in a county final. I really believe that!”

WHEN the history of Kilmurry Ibrickane is written – presumably in time for their centenary in 2014 – there’ll be couple of chapters or more on the never-ending story that is the contribution of the O’Dwyer Clan from Bonivella in Mullagh to green and red army.

Patriarch Patrick as the only man in the barony of Ibrickane to win county finals on the field of play and as a manager – not once but twice over; first son Odran who now has six medals on the field of play; Peter and Michael now have five; Odran, Peter, Robert and Michael winning Munster clubs; Odran being captain in the county and Munster club winning year of 2004……….

On this day it was Peter’s turn to lift Jack Daly, like Odran had done after those two memorable jousts with Éire Óg seven years ago. Peter’s turn may have been in a canter, but just as memorable because all county finals wins are.

“It is a very proud moment for me,” he says when alighting from Cusack Park’s Ard Comhairle with Jack Daly firmly in hand. “It’s a very proud moment whatever way you look at it. I was delighted when Odran lifted the cup and very proud to follow in his footsteps, but all that’s really important is winning. I wouldn’t mind if I was looking up at one of the other boys lifting the cup,” he adds.

Therein probably lies the secret, because as with all great teams it’s a case of ní neart go cur le chéile – the team over the individual all the time, especially on days like this when the Kilmurry train built up a head of steam they haven’t really produced in knockout competition in Clare since their destruction of St Senan’s Kilkee in the 2008 semi-final.

“Everything went for us on the day,” admits O’Dwyer. “I said in my speech that Doora-Barefield were a fine team, but everything went for us. That’s why we won so easily. We kicked three points in three minutes and that set up a platform for us.

“We haven’t been playing good football all year – we haven’t been playing consistent football, so it was good to get a good hour’s football in. We were focused from the throw in because we were conscious that we’ve had a lack of consistency.

“We weren’t happy with that and it’s something we’ve worked on in training to try and play at a high intensity level for 60 minutes. We achieved that today. You have to build momentum, you can’t peak all the time and I think we peaked for this game today.

“We have a good bunch of players and with that you believe that you can win it every year you go out – last year was part of the motivation. It wasn’t the main motivation, but it was part of it. Definitely it was.

“It was their first county final and after ten minutes they were chasing the game. They needed the start we got and if they had got it, it would have been a completely different game,” he adds.

As for the future, he knows Odran followed up Jack Daly with the Munster Cup – of course it would be nice to double up, but in the first flush of victory, all O’Dwyer was thinking about was the Hand Hill, the first bonfire and the first pint in McCarthy’s Bar.

“We will do our celebrating for the week,” he says, “and we will knuckle back down to work again and look forward to the Munster campaign and give that a lash.”