Author: admin

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.”

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.

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.

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!

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!”