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THE bottom line? Tulla hit harder, scored easier and devoured posses- sion when it mattered.

It was raw, powerful hurling and if this game was ever to develop into an intense battle, it was clear where the advantage would fall.

Crusheen simply lost their way. For three quarters of the game, they played with ferocity but in the end, the wides added up and chipped away at their confidence. By the time Ger- ry O’Grady slotted their first score of the second half, 46 minutes into the game, Crusheen were already look- ing like wolves on the prairie who had lost their scent.

Tulla smelled strengthened.

Sean Torpey gathered a couple of raking balls in front of his goal, Ean- na Torpey sped around the midfield area like a cannonball, Michael Mur- phy broke every ball in his orbit and Mark Quinn was his now familiar self at centre-back, dependable and unflappable.

For a second, it looked like Paddy Meaney was about to crush Tulla’s slender lead but his kick skidded left and wide and Crusheen were left with nothing.

It was another tough dose to swal- low and another painful descent from the climb just as the peak was in sight.

This year they got closer than ever — a Stroke of a hurley — but when, in decades to come, last Sunday after- noon is dusted down and recalled, they will realise that Tulla simply out-fought them in the last quarter.

All year, the champions of 2007 have been strong of body and strong of character. Back in Scariff as the summer was ending, they lost to Smith O’Briens and it hurt. Last

the fear. They

week before the final, when they were asked where was the turning point of the season, a few Tulla men pointed their finger east and highlighted that game.

A couple of hundred people sat in the stands that day, looking on as Tulla struggled with minutes left to salvage something. They failed but since then momentum has been with them. They walked away from Scariff quietly and set about turning things around. One main theory has subsequently surrounded that day, that Jim McInerney, in a stroke of genius, over-trained the team before the game to set up a straight knock- out against Scariff.

But according to the Tulla boys, there were no special preparations against Smith O’Briens. They trained as normal and may have played an extra challenge game earlier in the week, but nothing to put lead in their

legs.

It doesn’t matters now, but the loss against Smith O’Briens and the win against Scariuff put them on the way WOR And on Sunday, in front of thou- sands, they followed through on the pace they had gathered, becoming the only team in the county to win championships in three centuries. History makers now live among the locals on the hill of the apostles.

All year, the approach to the sea- son has contrasted between the two. Crusheen sat down in the winter and mapped out their route. They said a final had to be reached and noth- ing else would matter. They were deliberate and steady in everything. On Sunday, they gathered and went to 11:45am mass together in the vil- lage. They stood together and they focused.

In Tulla, they’ve gone about things

the other way. Took each game as a single battle and didn’t look down the line. Before their games in Cu- sack Park, they travelled separately and met a little over half an hour be- fore each game. It’s worked.

With the drape of darkness sinking in above Ennis on Sunday, as they ac- quainted themselves with the Canon Hamilton for the first time, this band of Tulla men could reflect and take heart that simply and in the most ba- sic tradition of the game, they stood up when it counted.

The game was no classic. At one stage Crusheen averaged a wide eve- ry four minutes but as it played out, strangely and suddenly the quality of hurling hardly seemed to matter.

We expected a good old Western duel, back to back stuff and first to fall wouldn’t get to their feet.

It didn’t play out like that but it did eTocs DOA OTALMAY hs

Take this handful of sketches: It took nine seconds for the first hurley to break, 32 seconds for the game’s first moment on the edge when Alan Brigdale planted the boss of his stick into the gut of Brian Quinn.

Then, 55 seconds later, with just over two minutes on the clock, Quinn had dusted himself down and had the netting billowing.

He picked up the scrappy ball that fell before him, turned and over his Shoulder, lassoed the shotar into the net.

For the rest of half, when they could, Tulla looked to find Quinn with long, high ball and though the full-forward won most of what came his way, he didn’t create another clear-cut goal chance.

But just after his goal, the fuse was lit and we sat back and inhaled and waited for the explosion but the fire began to fizzle out.

Crusheen hit some terrible wides, O’Grady failed to get into the game but Tony Meaney and Paddy Vaughan were moving well in midfield.

If Tulla were to win, it looked like they’d have to score at least another goal to stay in contention. But those Crusheen’s wides just kept mount- ing.

Kieran Brennan bounded onto the field from the bench in the second half and within seconds, he had stretched Tulla’s lead to two. Murphy broke a ball on the half-forward line, Torpey picked it up and passed to Brennan and Tulla were away.

It was a simple, effective move and it summed up the champion’s sea- son.

THE Government has opened a huge area off the Clare coast for explora- tion by oil and gas companies.

New exploration licences will al- low firms to explore a section of the Porcupine Basin, located between 100

and 200kms off the Clare, Galway and Kerry coasts. The 63,500 square kilo- metre area is located beside the Span- ish Point and Burren oil and gas fields which are currently under exploration by Providence Resources.

Speaking at the announcement of the new exploration licences, Green

Party TD Eamon Ryan said profit- able oil and gas fields could reap huge sums for the Exchequer.

“Treland’s oil and gas is a resource of the people. I want to ensure that our waters are fully explored and also that we get a proper return to the State,” he said.

IT WAS a proud day at St Mochulla’s National School in Tulla on Friday when staff and pupils raised their second Green Flag.

The school took their energy use to task to earn the accolade and in the process, cut their power and heating bills by 12.5 per cent.

“Staff parents and pupils were all involved,” said school Principal, Bri- an lorpey.

The pupils designed draught ex- cluders for the doors while reflective

panels were put behind all the radia- tors in the school.

Children formed an SOS – switch off switches – squad and patrolled the school in the morning to make sure there were no lights burning un- necessarily and did the same at going home time to ensure that computers and electrical equipment was not left on standby.

The staff room boiler was fitted with a timer and the schools ther- mostats were regularly monitored to make sure the heat had not been turned up too much.

“A parent came in and gave us a talk about how he is saving energy in his house with things like solar panels – it was very interesting,” said Brian.

Tulla Goalie, Phillip Brennan, did the honours in raising the flag at a special ceremony on Friday.

The school got it’s first Green Flag two years ago after the staff and 262 pupils got involved in reducing the school’s waste mountain.

The Green Flag scheme 1s approved by An Tasice in conjunction with lo- cal authorities and Clare County

Council came to the school to in- spect and approve the energy savings before the flag could be awarded.

And the clean, green school won’t stop there. “Having achieved our second flag, we’re now moving to get our third which is for reducing water waste,’ said Brian.

AS THE success starved Tulla fans flooded the field to greet the players, it was easy to mistake Jim McInerney for the politican who stood before the people in the 2004 local elections. Everyone wanted his hand.

Young kids took photos and asked for autographs and there was no doubting who they believed was the chief architect of this victory. In es- sence, Jim McInerney is the epitome of Tulla hurling. He manages the team how he played the game him- self, throwing everything into it. As he stormed up and down the sideline,

hitting every ball in his mind during the game, his raw emotions came to the fore.

He longed for this day – when Tulla could take their place amongst the club’s great teams of the past. He has always believed in his players and they have equally responded this year. But, he was still in disbelief that it had finally happened.

“It is a proud day, there is no doubt and it’s great to finally win it. That’s what we have always strived for and now we have it, it is hard to believe we have it.”

But he is also quick to remember the other side of the coin too, deem-

ing it rather unfair that Crusheen had to lose such a close final.

“VL tell you, my feelings are with Crusheen too. They gave us a great battle. There was nothing in it in the end, they were very unlucky not to score a goal at the end and I hope someday, they will go on and win the senior title because they are there a long time without it and they have a lot of great work done for hurling. They have been knocking on the door for the last four or five years and hopefully their day will come as well.”

McInerney could certainly feel the tension on the sideline as the game

hung in the balance. He looked as exhausted as any player who played in the decider but felt that despite in- juries to key players, his squad lived up to expectation.

“Andrew Quinn was a huge loss to us and I think it upset our team prob- ably for the last 20 minutes of the first half. But we regrouped at half-time and we played the kind of passion- ate hurling that took us through the quarter and semi finals. Sean Torpey in fairness to him, he got man of the match there. He caught some massive ball inside in the square where it was most dangerous. He dominated that area and came away with the ball.

“But it was a tremendous display by all our backs. Mark Quinn had a great game at centre-back again and our two corners were massive as were the two wing-backs.

“It was a great performance defen- sivewise. But Crusheen have great backs too and they made life awful hard for us and our forwards. As a result, with two great sets of backs, it was a low scoring game. It was a very tight battle right to the end and we just got through it in the end. Just about!”’

But justified as well. A one point victory and McInerney is on top of the pile.

CLARE is in line to become com- pletely self-sufficient for energy in less than a decade through the con- struction of a state-of-the-art wave energy system off the county’s west coast.

An area of water some 15 miles off Spanish Point has been earmarked by the Irish Marine Institute as an ideal location for the creation of the world’s first full-scale wave energy testing centre.

The institute will next month choose from three shortlisted sites for the test centre, with locations off the Kerry and Mayo coast also in the running.

A Galway-based company is likely to be the first to put its technology to the test in the centre and has already expressed an interest in developing a 200-megawatt wave farm off the Clare coast.

Wavebob is one of just 90 wave en- ergy companies worldwide, and one of just three who have managed to produced electricity in large-scale eet hS

“There is a recognition out there that Clare has huge potential in Ire- land for wave energy. Clare is a very attractive area, not just because of the waves, but also because of the strong erid connection at Moneypoint,” said

Andrew Parish of Wavebob.

‘The ESB have also said that they have an interest in developing a wave energy facility off the Clare coast.”

The construction of a Wavebob farm off the Clare coast would pro- duce up to 200 megawatts of energy, or roughly twice the domestic annual energy required for the county.

Moneypoint currently produces some 900 megawatts of electricity annually. However, the Government has committed to producing 75 meg- awatts before 2012, and 500 mega- watts before 2020 from wave energy, with Clare likely to produce a large proportion of this.

“Even if the Marine Institute de- cide to go elsewhere for the test cen- tre, private companies like ourselves will be looking very closely at the undoubted potential that Clare has for wave energy,” continued Mr Par- 0

“Any farm in Clare would be locat- ed roughly on the horizon, so people will be barely able to see them, if at all. At worst they would look like a fishing boat at the very tip of the ho- rizon.

“As well as this, Wavebobs have no impact at all on surfing. Unlike other facilities, like the Wave Dragons in Cornwall, the Wavebobs are much smaller and won’t impact on the waves at all.”

COUNCILLOR Cathal Crowe has been given a commitment from one of the main contractors in the Shan- non Tunnel construction that they will carry out repairs to roads in east OE

After meeting with representatives of the Roadstone company last week, Cllr Crowe said he was “given a firm commitment that they will carry out repair work on the Woodcockhill Road. I requested the meeting to

discuss the much deteiorated Wood- cockhill Road. My meeting with the official lasted for almost an hour and during this time we drove the length of the road and surveyed it’s various bad points.”

The councillor said that he has been raising concerns regarding the state of Phairs Road and the Wood- cockhill Road for the past year. He had met with a number of residents in the locality on several occasions “and their frustration 1s palpable. Many people living in the area have

complained to me not only about the poor condition of the road but also the untold damage that heavy good vehicles are causing to their front boundary walls. There can be no de- nying that most of the damage caused to these roads has been inflicted by the countless trucks that carry sand and gravel from the Woodcockhill sandpit to the nearby construction site of the Shannon Tunnel.”

At a council meeting last Decem- ber, Cllr Crowe tabled a motion call- ing for a fund to be set up to provide

for the immediate restoration and ongoing repair of Phairs Road. “I believe that the financing of any re- pair work should be the responsibil- ity of the relevant authorities / bodies involved in the construction of the Shannon Tunnel. The Shannon Tun- nel is a project of national impor- tance and whilst nobody in Meelick wants to get in the way of progress we feel that something urgent needs to be done to ensure that our local roads are restored to an appropriate standard.”

RYANAIR, Aer Lingus’s largest shareholder, has confirmed that it has submitted a formal complaint to the Irish Financial Regulatory Services Authority (IFSRA) concerning the alleged breach by Aer Lingus of Irish Company Law and Stock Exchange Rules.

The low-cost airline says the breach was in the Aer Lingus “*’selec- tive briefings to one shareholder (the Department of Transport) of market sensitive information (the closure of the Shannon-Heathrow route) some eight weeks prior to the announce- ment through the Stock Exchange

notice.”

A Ryanair spokesman said it is of grave concern “that one shareholder (the Department of Transport) which only holds a 25 per cent interest in Aer Lingus was repeatedly briefed on this market-sensitive informa- tion…before the Stock Exchange an- nouncement of this route closure on August 7.

“This repeated and selective dis- semination of market sensitive in- formation to one shareholder up to eight weeks prior to making all oth- er shareholders aware of the facts is a clear violation of Stock Exchange rules and Irish Company Law,” he claimed.

A YOUNG girl has told a court that her father turned into an “unkind evil daddy” and hurt her a lot.

The girl was giving evidence in the trial of her father who is accused of sexually assaulting his two daugh- ters. The 36-year-old man, who is originally from Clare and cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual as- sault on the girls on dates between September 2001 and December 2004 in a County Offaly town.

Dublin Circuit Court last week heard evidence via video-link from

one daughter who told prosecuting counsel, Una Ni Raifeartaigh BL, that she couldn’t remember how her father behaved when he was minding her while her mother was at work.

The man’s other daughter told the trial that her father used his penis to put cream on a rash on her bottom.

She said she was aged between four and five when the alleged offences took place. She said her father used to lie on top of her on the bed and push her head onto the pillow.

She said he would do this to her every night her mother was at work. She said she noticed that her father used to be kind to her, but that he

became “evil” and “turned into an unkind evil daddy”.

‘“He’d hurt us a lot and he didn’t used to,” she said.

She told defence counsel, Mr John Phelan SC, in cross-examination, that she had previously said her fa- ther used the cream when she was “a baby” and in further reply to counsel she replied: “A baby is until the age of two.”

The accused’s wife told the trial that both she and her children were petrified of her husband but that they loved him. When asked by counsel if she still loved him, she replied “Yes.”

She said she first went to gardai af- ter one of her daughters told her that her father “pretended to put cream on my bottom” but had hurt her. “She said, ‘Mammy, he really hurt me’.”

She explained that she then went to the Garda station two days later to make a report.

Ms Ni Raifeartaigh told the jury in opening the case that a medical examination was performed on the children and gardai took bedclothes from the house for forensic analysis.

The trial continues in legal argu- ment and will resume on Thursday, before a jury of five women and sev- eee

SUPERVALU Kilrush has displayed a decade of cleanliness and hygiene.

The supermarket owned by Queal- ly’s was awarded for its polished performance at a special ceremony in Dublin.

The supermarket won the prestig- ious Excellence Ireland ten year Na- tional Hygiene Mark Award at the annual National Quality and Excel- lence Awards which was organised by the Excellence Ireland Quality Association (EIQA).

The Excellence Ireland Hygiene and Food Safety certificate pro- gramme provides independent veri- fication of the highest standards of hygiene and food safety in the food sector, so for SuperValu, Kilrush to

receive this award for the past ten years was no small achievement.

The supermarket had to excel through the most rigorous of audit and assessment programmes de- signed to produce long-term under- standing and commitment to quality in every aspect of the business.

The award was presented to Paul Queally and Denis Nolan by Paul O’Grady, Managing Director, and Excellence Ireland Quality Associa- nee

Mr Nolan was in no doubt who was due the credit for such an achieve- ment.

“Winning the National Hygiene and Food Safety award is one of our key business objectives each year and everyone who works here plays a part in striving for this. The bar for

excellence is raised each year and the team have certainly responded to the benchmarks put in place. Our customers have very high expecta- tions, which we work hard to ensure they are achieved on a daily basis,” he said.

Congratulating the Kilrush super- market Donal Horgan, SuperValu Managing Director, said that quality and hygiene were top priorities for Supervalu Kilrush therefore, it was no coincidence that it consistently received awards in retail hygiene and food safety.

“It 1s a tremendous achievement for Queally’s Kilrush to receive the 10 years National Hygiene Award. It demonstrates their consistent at- tention to detail and commitment to putting in place top class quality

and hygiene systems. Quality is and always will be at the heart of every- thing we do. Queally Supervalu in- vest hugely, both time and money, in ensuring the highest possible hygiene standards and food safety measures. For SuperValu, Kilrush to maintain such high standards ten years in a row takes an enormous amount of hard work and dedication from the owners, managers and staff,’ he SrHKOe

TWO young men who stole cider from an apartment in Ennistymon have been warned if they offend again they may face time behind bars.

The warning, from Judge Michael White, came at Ennis Circuit Court as Noel Mullane (25) and Robert Molloy (19), of Ardnaculla, En- nistymon, pleaded guilty to stealing a guitar bag and cans of cider at an apartment in Ennistymon, on August 17, 2006.

In the district court last April Mul- lane had pleaded not guilty and opted to have the case heard in the circuit Co) U ae

Garda Colm Collins told the court that Andrew Hertz left his apartment in Ennistymon at 6am with friends. He didn’t lock the door of his home, but had assumed that the main door of the apartment block was locked.

His neighbour woke at 8am and heard noise from the apartment block. She saw the two accused walking into Mr Hertz’s apartment and then leaving it, with what she thought was a black bag. She alerted the owner of the apartment and the ee KOre

When gardai arrived at the scene, the two accused were sitting on a bench near the apartment block. They were highly intoxicated, said Garda Collins, and he arrested them under the Public Order Act.

“I conducted a quick search of the area and found a black guitar case

on top of a shed close to where they were sitting. It was full of cans of Bulmers,” said the garda.

The guitar case was used to hold the drink, the court heard.

Mullane’s barrister Lorcan Con- nolly said his client was “heavily intoxicated” that night, having been

on a “complete drinking binge in La- hinch and Ennistymon”.

Molloy’s barrister, Michael Fitz- gibbon, said his client had also been drinking for several hours.

“The burglary was solely todo with drink. It could hardly be regarded as a sophisticated crime. The gardai came on the scene. They made no at- tempt to make a getaway. They were caught drinking the cans of Bulm- ers,’ said Mr Fitzgibbon.

Addressing the two accused, Judge White said, “Mr Mullane, this is your fifth conviction since 2002. You are skating on thin ice. There’s one way you will go if you offend again. You’d want to be very careful. Drink isn’t an excuse for this type of behav- elu e

“Molloy, you’re only 19 years of age. You’re in a similar situation. A judge is going to have very lit- tle choice but to send you to prison. That’s the direction you’re going.”

He imposed a one-year jail sentence on Mullane and a one-year detention term on Molloy. Both sentences were suspended for two years.