*Lissycasey’s Darragh Killeen. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
LISSYCASEY will line out in their first Clare SFC semi-final since 2021 on Saturday against title holders Éire Óg.
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Reaching the penultimate stage was the chief goal for Lissycasey when they set out their stall at the beginning of the year, manager Aiden ‘Horse’ Moloney explained. “At the start of the year, the target would have been to get to the last four, it has a place we’ve struggled to get to over the last few years, I think the boys deserve it”.
As part of their progression, lining out in the semi-finals was “the minimum”, he said. “I think it was a minimum this year for us, not getting there would have been a downer for us, there is no doubt we’ve brought on a lot of good young lads over the last few years and they are starting to come through, who knows where it will take them”.
Within the space of twelve minutes in their quarter-final, Lissycasey let a nine point lead slip down to four against St Breckans. “I thought at times we showed a little lack of experience but that comes with youth too, we’ve a lot of young footballers in there. We need to hold possession and wait for the opportunity but we snatched it a few times in the first and second half, we had three really good goal chances in the first half and walked away with nothing as such, maybe just a point but it is a learning curve for a lot of these lads, winning is the best way to learn I suppose,” the 2002 Clare SFC winning captain said.
He added, “They played really well but we still left an unreal amount of scores out there in the game, that is something we will try tighten up on”.
Having led 0-11 0-5 at half-time, they got a great start to the second half when Shane Griffin goaled. “Shane played really well, we’d be shouting at him to take a point but to give him his due he went for it and scored it, it was a great boost and it set us on the road, it was a matter then of managing the game which we didn’t do to our best at times but more or less it was game management after that even though no lead is too big in this new system”.
Despite the gap falling to four points entering the final ten minutes, Lissycasey kicked on and finished with an unanswered 1-2 in the final five minutes to seal a 2-17 0-14 win. “I thought the backs coped relatively well, we made a lot of interceptions, I thought Ryan Griffin in the full-back line played very well, he had an influence on everything we tried to do and Connor Meaney as well. We put 2-17 on the board which is something to be happy with. St Breckans are no mean team so we’re delighted to get over the line”.
