*Ray & Dylan Casey with the Clare Cup. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
AN ELEVEN YEAR WAIT to win a second Clare Cup medal was gladly ended for Dylan Casey on Saturday evening.
He was a fresh-faced teenager as part of the David Russell captained Avenue Utd squad to have defeated Bridge Utd B in the 2011 Clare Cup final, over a decade later he was wearing the captain’s armband and in the heart of their defence while Russell held the manager’s role guiding them to victory over Newmarket Celtic.
Painful lessons of the past where they let games slip out of their grasp were referenced at half-time as they held a 2-0 advantage. “I’m absolutely delighted, as I said to you at the start of the week the hard work that we’ve put in finally showed off for once. A couple of years we were 2-0 up in a Cup final against them and lost, I said at half-time it doesn’t happen again and we do not let it slip, they got a free at the end which I didn’t think was a free, it was very soft, they scored from it but we got over the finish line and we’re absolutely delighted”.
Newmarket struggled to create scoring chances from play which is testament to the rock solid pairing on the day of Casey and Conor Mullen. Their focus never dropped as he stressed the Celtic attack were capable of punishing them at any moment. “All they need is one chance, if David (McCarthy) gets the ball then it’s straight to Hayzo (Eoin Hayes) or (Stephen) Kelly up top and they’ll flick it on, they’re always going to be a threat no matter what, they might not create much for the whole game but they’re still dangerous, they’ve Kelly, (Paddy) Purcell, Colin Smyth, they’re big lads but we dealt with them very well and they won very little headers today”.
Captaining the side brought an extra bit of satisfaction, the Ennis native admitted while pointing out that they are keen to “get over the finish line” when the sides meet in the league decider on Wednesday evening.
His father, Ray a former captain of the club and a manager of the many successful schoolboys teams Dylan played on in the underage ranks was a vocal figure in Frank Healy Park issuing words of advice particularly to the back four.
Dylan was expecting to hear further analysis when he landed home following the celebrations. “We’ll have war when we go home, he’ll be telling me where I should have been and doing this or that, it’s easier looking from the line but I’m playing the game so I’m doing what I think I should be doing but obviously knows best, I try listen to him, sometimes he does get on my nerves, he is like a parrot on the line but look isn’t that what fathers are for”.
