*Cratloe’s Conor Ryan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
RETURNING to the knockout stages has always been the primary focus for county champions Cratloe.
A draw with Ennistymon in round two achieved that objective for Colm Collins’ side who face Doonbeg in Cusack Park on Sunday in their final outing in Group 3, the result of which will determine the rankings of the teams.
Rescuing a share of the spoils against Ennistymon was a pleasing result for the champions.
“To be fair it was probably a point gained for us, Ennistymon dominated that game but I’m very proud of the lads the way they came back twice to get something out of the game, we’d be looking at that one as a point gained,” Collins explained.
He continued, “The character was always there, we were up against it, there was a nice strong breeze and scores were hard to get at the Town end but we showed great character, we go into our last game and hopefully a win there will set us up but it is a tough one against Doonbeg in the last group game”.
Guaranteed a place in the knockout stages, this weekend will confirm if it is directly through to the quarter-finals or via the preliminary quarter-finals that they will go. “It is vital to get back into the last eight and knockout football is knockout football after that, there is very little between all the teams on any given day. They got the goal which put them in the driving seat but we were chasing that for most of the game but thankfully we did chase it and we chased it twice to get something out of it”.
Collins does not expect to have either Podge Collins or Eoin Carey available for selection, the duo both sustained hamstring injuries when representing the club’s hurlers in the first round of the Clare SHC against Feakle. I don’t think they’ll be right anyway, I think it will be longer than that to be honest, with hamstrings you have to wait and see and give them time”.
For Colm it is the first time in over a decade that he is patrolling the sideline as Cratloe boss without the tag of county manager. “It is great, it’s mighty, I still have the interest and it is great to be with this club and this group of players, most of them have played at the top level and it is privilege to be dealing with them”.
