Category: Sport

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.

Tulla Utd 3 – Avenue United 3 at The Cragg, Tulla

A SIX-GOAL thriller at The Cragg entertained the spectators on Sunday morning as Tulla United deservedly picked up their first point of the campaign when grabbing an injury time equaliser against the bluebloods from the county capital.

You could say that Denis Corry’s charges struck early and late to ensure that they got a share of the spoils against an Avenue side that were hoping to build on their thumping Premier Division opener when they thumped Mountshannon Celtic by 5-1.

However, on this day there was to be no double against east Clare opposition as a resilient Tulla side more than put it up to their opponents.

Indeed, they bossed this game for the first 20 minutes after getting the dream start of a goal inside the first minute. In many ways it was a gift from the visitors, after a comedy of errors in defence was ruthlessly punished by Colin Nelson who found the net past John Healy.

From there Tulla, who were very unlucky to be go down to Lifford in their opening league game four weeks previously, gained real confidence and had much the better of the exchanges against their illustrious opponents with Darragh Corry showing really well in the midfield exchanges.

However, a set-piece play got Avenue back into the game when left winger David Smith beautifully floated a free kick from outside the area into the top corner of the net after 25 minutes.

This changed the game – Avenue’s early jitters and hesitancy was cast away and they grew into the task at hand and had the better of the exchanges for the rest of the half, albeit they failed to press this home on the scoreboard.

The sides were deadlocked 1-1 at the break, but 15 minutes in the tie seemed to turn decisively in Avenue’s favour when Tulla defender Denis Murphy was adjudged to have fouled Mikey Mahony in the box.

From the resultant penalty David Russell drove to the net to put Avenue ahead 2-1, a lead they looked like holding onto as the tie drifted into the final ten minutes. However, after 81 minutes a long free kick from midfield was miss-judged by Alex and Niall Whelan nipped in with a header for the equaliser.

But, the drama was only beginning because back came the Avenue and they seemed ot have kept their 100 per cent start to the season intact when influential midfielder David McCarthy beat Shane Collins in the Tulla goal.

But credit Tulla – they never said die and in the last minute, Denis Murphy atoned for giving away the penalty when he got the final touch after another route one delivery from a free and beat John Healy to bring the drama to a close.

Both sides went home happy.

Tulla United
Shane Collins, David McInerney, Denis Murphy, Niall Whelan, Paul O’Malley, Darragh Corry, Shane

Mason, Brian Hehir,Tommy McKeown,Trevor Corbett, Colin Nelson.

Subs
Ger Hanrahan for Corbett, PadraigVaughan for Hehir, Sunny Jay for Nelson.

Avenue United
John Healy, Simon Cuddy, Mattie Nugent, David Russell,Alex, Con Collins, Gary Flynn, Dave McCarthy, Sean Corry, David Smith, Mickey Mahony.

Sub
Darren O’Meara for Flynn.

Man of the Match
Darragh Corry (Tulla United)

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.

Shannon Gaels 1-7 – Kilrush Shamrocks 0-8 at Cooraclare

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Kilrush Shamrocks 3-5 – Corofin 1-8 at Hennessy Memorial Park, Miltown

THE cry went out from Miltown all the way down the N67 to Kilrush and down plenty of other roads too – loud and shrill that the Shams are back.

That they’re minor champions after 21-long years was down to a team effort, of course, but 15-year-old Liam Madigan was the man with his brilliant return of 3-3 bringing the PJ Lynch/Tom Malone Cup back to the west Clare capital.

First off he put the Shams on the high road with a goal as early as the fourth minute, then in the second after Corofin were dominating af- ter pegging back a five-point deficit to two points, he bagged two goals in the space of three minutes to put them eight points clear entering the last ten minutes.

The Shams got a dream start when hitting 1-2 inside the first five minutes of the game, but more than that it was the tactics that they employed that suffocted the Corofin challenge.

Pat ‘Rico’ Clancy may be looking across the estuary at Kerry from his home out the Killimer road, but this was more Tyrone than Kerry as the tactic of dropping his half-backs deep closed down the space that Corofin forwards needed to make any im- pression on this county final.

By then they were fighting a losing battle after an early free from Liam Madigan, followed by a Gearóid O’Brien point from play settled the Shams into the game after four minutes, while they were on the high road a minute later after a long ball by the hardworking Con Prendeville broke kindly for Madigan to toe-poke the ball to the net.

When Madigan followed up with another pointed free in the tenth minute it looked as if this would be cruise for the Shams. And, it was for the rest of the half save a spirited Corofin burst in a five-minute spell that nearly brought them back into the game.

Gearóid Kelly opened their account with a free in the 15th minute, but a minute later they were unlucky not to strike for a goal when Jamie Malone’s rasping drive crashed off the inside of the post and back into play.

Gearóid Kelly did land another free in the 19th minute, but the Shams closed the half impressively with points from Jonathon Stack from play after a brilliant flick by Liam Madigan and then another Madigan free to lead by 1-5 to 0-2 at the break.

Corofin were vastly improved on the turnover with two inspirational points from Jamie Malone either side of a Gearóid Kelly free had them back in the game by the 40th minute.

When Kelly’s fourth free reduced the margin to two points the defending champions had the scent of victory, only for Madigan to tip the balance decisively in the Shams’ favour once more.

He drove home a penalty in the 48th minute after a foul on Jonathon Stack – then three minutes later slalomed through the Corofin defence soccerstyle and slammed to the net to kill the contest.

Corofin did battle back when hitting 1-2 without reply in the closing minutes, with Jamie Malone goaling from a penalty but the Shams, through Madigan had done enough to trigger off celebrations that would have done a senior team proud.

PAT ‘RICO’ Clancy is a passionate man when it come to his beloved Shams, so much so that putting his words to print after his side’s minor triumph on Saturday, don’t do really them their full justice. YouTube is the natural habitat for the his one-minute interview after the game, but still, his passion jumps from the page in the way he explained the Shams’ return to the winner’s enclosure.

“Great win lads,” he roars, before cranking up the volume. “A long time coming for Kilrush lads. We’re 21 years waiting for this lads. People might say it’s only a B, but it’s gone so long now we had to win something lads.

“I think today lads Kilrush have turned a corner. We will be back lads. We will build on it. We have to start somewhere. We had won noth- ing in 21 years and today lads, we have made a start. We are back,” he adds defiantly and furiously.

Then he peels away, gulping some air before piecing together the reasons for the Shams’ success story.

“There are five of us. Jimmy Murray’s experience had it all to do here. Pat Kelly was also there. Matthew Moloney trained the team all year, through thick and thin. We brought in Moloney and Christopher Dixon and they did great. It’s very hard for the older fellas to talk to young fellas, but they had the bond with them and they drove him.

“They showed a never-say-die attitude and that was always the day in Kilrush football. I’m sick and tired of it. Twenty one years of we should have won this and we should have won that. You make your own luck and we did that today.”

And the person who did more than only one else, the great white hope of Kilrush football on the strength of his brilliant display.

“Liam Madigan was the lifeblood. In fairness we always had great corner forwards in Kilrush. We had the best of forwards, but this young fella is something special. He’s only 15 years of age. The game was in the melting pot. He picked his spot, coolness personified lads. You can’t ask any more from a 15-year-old.”

Ennistymon 2-13 – Kilmihil 1-7 at Hennessy Memorial Park, Miltown

ENNISTYMON have never had it so good at minor level, but had they lost this one it would have been a case of never having it so bad.

It was never going to happen though – four successive final defeats in the grade from five finals in a row wasn’t on before a ball was kicked, something that was confirmed within 17 minutes of the start by which time a rampant north Clare Magpies had hit 2-6 without reply.

Game over. The Hennessy Cup was going from Hennessy Park to the town of the Cascades – it was already damage limitation for a shellshocked Kilmihil side that had been hit by the perfect storm.

And perfection it was from Ennistymon in that first half as they won their first title since 2007 thanks to building up a 2-10 to 0-1 interval lead as they pounded poor Kilmihil at every opportunity.

The goals were killers, the first coming in the eighth minute when Ryan O’Halloran latched onto a breaking ball from Cathal McDonagh’s free and drove the ball to the net from seven yards, while James McConigley’s wonder strike in the 16th minute settled the argument as early as that.

The bombardment started as early as the third minute when Eoin Ralph raided from centre-back to land a point, while Ryan O’Halloran goal in the eighth minute was the signal for one-way traffic towards the Miltown’s town goal.

When it was followed by two good Joey Rouine points from play, a Cathal McDonagh free, McConigley’s goal when he blasted to the top corner from 14 yards and points by Barry Keating and Ryan O’Halloran, Kilmihil were left wondering if they’d make any impact on the game.

Conor Finucane did land their first score in the 24th minute, but it was all they could muster against an Ennistymon team that dominated every line, with Rouine being the hub of operations at centre-forward, while Ciaran Devitt and Cathal McConigley ran riot around the middle.

A miss-match, in other words, as a hapless Kilmihil rolled over in that first half as four more points thorugh Joey Rouine, Cathal McConigley and two Cathal McDonagh frees left 15 points between the sides at the break.

Credit Kilmihil for stemming the tide in the second half when restricting Ennistymon to three points while hitting 1-6 of their own, but it was more a case of Mark Shannon’s side free-wheeling it to the final whistle.

The sides shared four points between them in the opening ten minutes – Barry Keating grabbing two for Ennistymon either sid of points from David Lorrigan and Martin O’Leary.

Remarkably Ennistymon went 23 minutes without scoring in the second half, during which Kilmihil hit 1-4 without reply, the goal coming when Niall Pender’s long shot was fumbled to the net by Liam Slattery in the 45th minute.

It was a little victory, however pyrrhic, because ultimately there was no denying Ennistymon, with the prospect of a doubling up in next Sunday’s under 21 final against Cratloe the next mountain they want to climb.

IT’S been a long and winding road for Ennistymon over the past five years. They won the minor A title back in 2007 with a group that followed through to win an under 21 title in 2010.

But in between that minor win four years ago and Saturday in Miltown they’d lost three finals in the grade – to Cratloe in 2008, Lissycasey in ’09 and Doora-Barefield in ’10.

“It hurt an awful lot losing the last three finals,” says manager Mark Shannon after the losing streak was finally ended.

“Yes it was a great achievement getting to five in a row, but we wanted to be getting another win on the board. We were really determined today and really wanted to get off to a quick start.

“Goals was the key for us this year. The year we won the minor championship in 2007 we got goals. This year in all our games we’ve had forwards of the calibre to get goals. They continually got goals for us all year and we got two more early in the game and that set us up. We lost our way a bit in second half but when it came to the crunch we did the business,” he adds.

As Shannon was parsing the year, one of his joint captains Óisín Vaughan was talking about bringing Jack Daly back to the north Clare capital. “It would be great,” says Shannon, but we can’t get complacent.

“Minor and under 21 success doesn’t automatically say that it’s going to happen in senior, but that’s what we’re working towards that and hopefully one day we can win a senior championship.

“For this minor championship I knew we would have been contenders because we had a lot of the same group that we had for last few years. I knew in the last two weeks that it was going to take a good team to beat us. We had an unbelievable amount of work done in the last few weeks in training.”

Clarecastle 2-14 – Clooney/Quin 1-10 at Cusack Park, Ennis

CLARECASTLE advanced to a Senior B final with a degree of comfort in Sixmilebridge on Saturday afternoon, the Magpies in control throughout against a dogged, but profligate Clooney/Quin. The Magpies broke the back of this game with a tidy first half performance into the wind and they turned around with a five point advantgae, 1-8 to 0-6 at the break.

That lead was earned with an economical performance in front of goal, while at the other end Clooney/Quin shot a succession of wides. Eamon Callinan and David Greene led the way for the winners in that opening period, with Conor O’Gorman cracking home a well taken goal, while Callinan kept the white flag umpire busy. The Clarecastle sharpshooter would finish the game with 1-9 to his credit.

Early in the second half the Magpies went nine points clear when Callinan was in a the right place to intercept an intended clearance, steadying himself before blasting to the net. That score put his side 2-10 to 0-7 clear and the writing looked to be on the wall. As is a trademark of Clooney/Quin in recent years however, they didn’t go quietly, hitting back themselves with a goal from Martin Duggan and two points to close the gap at one stage to four with over fifteen minutes still on the clock.

Clarecastle quelled the comeback however with a series of well taken points from play, David Greene, Tyrone Kierse and Callinan again with a spectacular effort from over seventy yards out in the murky condi- tions to put proper daylight between the teams.

The winners now await old foes Newsmarket or Smith O’Briens in the Senior B final. Best for Clarecastle were Stephen O’Halloran, Patrick Kelly, Kevin Clohessy, Eric Flynn, Eamon Callinan, Conor O’Gorman and David Greene.

Clooney/Quin had a stand out performer in centre back Cillian Duggan. Elsewhere Fergal Lynch, Mike McNamara, Shane McNamara, Mark O’Halloran and Joe O’Loughlin tried hard.

Clarecastle
Donagh Murphy, Seanie Moloney, Stephen O’Halloran, Kevin Clohessy, Fergus Ryan, Patrick Kelly, Eric Flynn, Danny Scanlon, Jonathan Clancy, Darragh Moloney, Ciaran O’Dwyer, Eamon Callinan (1-9, 0-6 f),Tyrone Kierse (0-1), David Greene (03), Conor O’Gorman (1-1).

Clooney/ Quin
Damian O’ Halloran, Joe O’Loughlin, Conor Harrisson, Shane McNamara; Donnacda Murphy, Cillian Duggan, Enda Harrisson, Mike McNamara (0-1), John Earls (0-1), Mark O’Halloran (0-1), Fergal Lynch (0-2), Martin Duggan (1-0), PaudieWard, Derek Ryan (0-5 frees), Mike Daffy.

Subs
Adrian Fleming for Ward, Seamus Conroy for Ryan

Inagh/Kilnamona 1-17 – Clonlara 3-09 at Clarecastle

INAGH/KILNAMONA’S lack of a clinical edge again proved costly on Sunday afternoon after a late Clonlara charge earned them another bite of the cherry. Five points clear with seven minutes remaining, Inagh/Kilnamona failed to close out the game and they were to be punished as a lacklustre Clonlara suddenly found a spark to almost snatch the game.

Frustratingly, Inagh/Kilnamona, for all their undoubted progress this year, still have not learned the lessons of previous campaigns when the lack of a killer instinct cost them dearly. Even in previous big games this year, against Crusheen in the drawn game of their play-off in this competition as well as the championship quarterfinal against now finalists Sixmilebridge, they failed to take the chances that they worked so hard to create.

Fortunately, an injury-time free from Ger Arthur saved their blushes on this occasion and means that they still have the chance to rectify those misgivings the next day and on the evidence of the majority of this display, they certainly are more than capable of achieving a historic final place.

They were the brighter team for the bulk of the hour even if some ambitious shooting as well as a tendency to leak goals hampered their progress. They blazed into a 0-4 to 0-2 lead by the 14th minute with corner-forwards Ger Arthur (2) and Conor Tierney causing an understrength Clonlara concern.

What would have been more concerning for Pat Conlon and his team however was the hangover from their championship exit to Kilmaley that meant they were slow to settle. But settle they did and who better than John Conlon to get them going when fielding a high delivery from Tomás O’Donovan to strike to the net from close range in the 14th minute. The county senior followed that up with a point soon afterwards and suddenly the 2009 champions found themselves 1-3 to 0-6 clear.

Inagh/Kilnamona eventually recovered from that blow to hit three unanswered points through Eamon Glynn, Tierney and the lively Ger Arthur but it was their injury-time goal that really restored their confidence. A slick move close to goal involving Ger Arthur and Eamon Glynn released the unmarked Conor Tierney at the back post to strike to the net and hand his side a 1-9 to 1-5 half-time lead.

The fact that they fully recovered from a second hammer blow midway through the second half should have spurred them on to a comfortable victory but it wasn’t as easy as that. Colm Galvin cut in from the right corner to cut Inagh/Kilnamona’s advantage to the bare minimum with a 42nd minute goal but the Combo’s reponse was admirable as they hit five out of the next six points, mainly through Ger and Niall Arthur to once again regain a five point lead by the 51st minute.

It seemed only a matter of running down the clock but out of nowhere Clonlara sprung to life, aided greatly by Tomás O’Donovan, now at fullforward, who grabbed a goal and a point in a late 1-3 purple patch. His 56th minute kicked goal was the catalyst and he also got the leading point on the hour mark to put them on the cusp of a memorable victory.

However, Inagh/Kilnamona did have enough time to stop the rot and launch one more attack and when Paul O’Looney was fouled 35 metres from goal, it was inevitably Ger Arthur who took the responsibility to give his side a second chance.

And for their continued development, it’s a chance that they simply must take.

Inagh/ Kilnamona
Patrick Kelly (7) (0-2f), Milo Keane (7), Brian Glynn (7), Dermot Lynch (7), Ronan O’Looney (7), David Hegarty (7), ColmPilkington (7), HaulieVaughan (7), Paul O’Looney (6), EoinVaughan (7), Eamon Glynn (7) (0-1), Niall Arthur (7) (0-3 2f), Ger Arthur (8) (0-8 3f, 1’65), Dermot Gannon (7) (01), Conor Tierney (7) (1-2)

Clonlara
Ger O’Connell (7), Senan Nihill (6), John Moloney (7), Shane O’Brien (6), Nicky O’Connell (7) (0-2 1f, 1’65), Paul Nihill (7), Cillian Fennessy (7), Cormac O’Donovan (7),WilliamSlattery (6), Pat O’Hare (6),Tomás O’Donovan (8) (1-1), Cathal O’Connell (7) (0-3), ColmGalvin (7) (1-0), John Conlon (8) (1-5 3f), James Hastings (6)

Subs
Jason Murphy (6) for O’Hare (HT), Oisin O’Brien (6) for Hastings (HT), Barry Moloney for S. Nihill (51 mins), Donal Madden for Galvin (58 mins)

Man of the Match
Ger Arthur (Inagh/ Kilnamona) Referee KevinWalsh (WolfeTones)