Camogie Club Championship coverage proudly sponsored by Clare Credit Unions
*Kilmaley’s Moira Maher. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
COUNTY FINAL appearances and Kilmaley has been like waiting for buses with two big deciders on the horizon for the parish.
Kilmaley’s senior camogie side ended a twelve year wait to qualify for the county final when overcoming a fancied Scariff/Ogonnelloe by three points while the club’s hurlers bridged a twenty two year gap when beating Scariff by eleven points.
When they get to finals, they know how to win and that is the philosophy that Shane Slattery and his senior camogie management are hoping to tap into when they take on a Truagh/Clonlara outfit looking to win their third title in four seasons.
Shane told The Clare Echo, “It has been an incredible couple of days, with the hurlers qualifying for the final it has been mayhem but it is a great place to be. Anybody involved in sport knows there’s so many dark days and bad days in every club and parish so when you get the good days you have to embrace them, that said the girls know they have a job to do, it is about us enjoying the occasion and putting in a performance. When you try and work so hard on both sides in camogie and hurling, it is great to have these days”.
In his third season as manager, Shane described it “a nice build”. He outlined, “there’s been a massive effort put in since 2014 but it just hasn’t fallen together, like every rural parish there’s emigration, we’ve had so many girls that have had kids so when I first came in it was about trying to get them back. We’re so lucky to have so much youth coming through, the numbers are really adding to what we have, it has been a slow build, it hasn’t been done overnight and there’s been great work done by Danny Cabey, Eoin O’Malley, Gerry Kennedy, Freddy Markham and Martin Enright before me, it just didn’t fall their way in that period, it has been a slow build but we’re delighted with where we are at because we always knew the talent was there, it is just getting the girls together and this year it has gone to another level with the effort they have put in and it has made a massive effort on the pitch. The girls have been incredible with the effort they have given over the last three years, sometimes you don’t get the reward you put into it so it is great to be in a county final, it shows we’re on the right track and we’re in a Junior A final the day after so we’ll be performing with the Cratloes and Wolfe Tones so we’re going in the right direction”.
Shane works for Electronic Arts, the video game company with headquarters in California but remains proud of his roots in Inch. “Shantulla is the address, I’m between Inch and Woodstock, it is probably the worst road in the county if not the country, it is the road I learned to drive on, if you can reverse down that road you can do anything. Inch NS was very small when I went there, I’m a very proud Inch and Kilmaley man, I had an incredible upbringing, it is a great place to grow up, I’m very proud to be a Kilmaley man, we’ve a few girls on the edge of the parish, it covers a lot of ground, it is an incredible place to grow up and be from”.
Prior to taking charge of the senior camogie side, Slattery served as a mentor with club U21, U16 and U10 teams but labelled his “main management role” as the Junior B boss from 2015 to 2019. “It was so long ago but it was a key role because we had a lot of minor lads coming through like Aaron Moloney, Tommy Barry, Tom O’Rourke, Cathal Darcy all played Junior B for a year and it was a great experience because the likes of Conor Clancy were playing and it was a great breeding ground for them, it is great to play a year at that level, that was my main role within the club, I did a few bits with the Clare U15s but nothing crazy. This came up three years ago, the girls were stuck at the time, I knew the talent that was coming and it was just a case of whether I could give the commitment or not, I was able and it hasn’t been overnight, a lot of long evenings from players and management, I am delighted they are getting the rewards now”.
Clarecastle’s James Healy joined the management as coach for this year, working alongside selectors Paul Kennedy, Marie Hehir and S&C coach Hazel McGauley. Consistency was pinpointed by Slattery before a ball was pucked and they have delivered, winning all their games except the last round of the group stages against Inagh/Kilnamona on September 12th.
According to Shane “numerous factors” have helped them reach the county final. “We have a lot of girls playing football so the schedule can kill you, you have to navigate injuries like every club, it wasn’t anything that the players were doing wrong, it was just the level of opposition, there’s so many clubs going well and making such progress that a missing player for either club can make a massive difference. It has fell right for us this year, we got better with every performance, our workrate and effort has been outstanding from start to finish but everything else has got better every day, every game has been a big game so it’s been a massive learning curve for the younger girls. When you’re building a team you want them to experience those moments together, I know they have done it in other avenues like ladies football or for Kilmaley during 2008 to 2014 but when the pressure came on our girls this year they really did perform, there was criticial moments along the way and experience the occasion like the semi-final double header in Sixmilebridge with four great teams and our girls to put in that performance with that workrate, composure when it mattered was great. We’re absolutely delighted with where we are at, I’m delighted for the girls because some of them have been playing for ten years and sacrificed a lot and never got to a county final, we have a nice mix of different stories and experiences so it has fuelled the hunger with the older girls wanting to win one more and the younger girls who won an awful lot underage which made a massive difference too to our consistency levels and performances”.
Having already defied the odds to knock out Scariff/Ogonnelloe, separating Kilmaley from championship success is “an almighty task” of trying to take down Truagh/Clonlara. “We’ve the utmost faith in our girls from one to thirty, we’re coming up against another giant, you don’t get to six county finals in a row without getting that status, across hurling and camogie very few teams have accrued such a record, you’d nearly need to go back to the sixties or seventies to match that, it is incredible what they did in getting to an All-Ireland final against Sarsfields, it was massive exposure for Clare camogie and it inspired every club, you can’t put a price on that, it is massive for women in sport to have a local club competing in Munster and All-Ireland levels. When we took the role three years ago, our aim was to get to the top three or four in Clare, once you get there you’re talking about county semi-finals and finals, we’ve slayed one giant, I know it shocked a lot of people but I have so much belief and pride in these girls, I know how hard they have worked, it is great to get their just rewards, we still have a job to do and we know it is a mammoth task, our girls are ready”.
