*Shane Woods, Noel Hehir and Seán Rynne. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
DRIVEN by the hurt of a premature exit from the Clare SHC, Inagh/Kilnamona U21 joint captain Shane Woods was inspired to taste championship glory in 2025.
Woods was to the fore at full-back in leading Inamona over the line against Éire Óg in Sunday’s Berwick Callinan Murphy U21A hurling final, prevailing by the minimum.
Three months to the tie since they lost 3-21 1-17 to Éire Óg in the quarter-finals of the Clare SHC, Shane admitted he was driven to atone for that loss. “We’re delighted now, we’ve been training for the last three months. We lost the senior quarter-final three months ago, we’ve been hurt over it and it really sat with us, it hasn’t come off our mind and we wanted to undo that day, we got justice for it today thankfully, we’ve trained hard and everyone from one to thirty three put in the same effort and the management were all part of it”.
Putting their focus straight into the U21 campaign off the back of their senior exit saw them give their hurt a purpose, he said. “You want to stay hurling all year round, we’re only young lads and you can see a lot of young lads drift away from the game, it is a great complaint to be hurling this time of year, we’re nearly into Christmas week and there’s nowhere else we’d rather be. For the lads not involved with Clare teams or development teams this is big for them because they get to stay hurling all year round, I think there should be more of these competitions up along and keep everyone hurling through the years”.
At number three with Conor Rynne and James Cullinan beside him, they formed a full-back line which limited Éire Óg’s three senior hurlers in the inside line to one point from play between them. Cullinan went off with injury to be replaced by Alex Leydon.
Full-back Shane made two goal-saving interventions, blocking Eoin O’Regan and hooking Marco Cleary in separate moves in the third quarter. “It wasn’t just one man, the lads make your job an awful lot easier when they are covering the space or covering my man to let me go out to save a shot, it is massive, once someone goes we know another lad has our back. We’ve a lot of hurt built up over the last few years, we’ve under-achieved at senior and everything, we’ve lost U21 finals and semi-finals but today we turned it around thank God”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Shane gave his view that Inagh/Kilnamona has not reached its potential. “I won a minor but I wasn’t playing because I was injured, I’ve the U21 now which is great, we’ve under-achieved coming up along so it is good to play my last underage game with a win”.
He continued, “Inagh/Kilnamona teams in the last few years would fade away and go missing in the last few years, we promised ourselves this year that we wouldn’t go missing, it worked out and we chipped out the win to get over the line”.
Now preparing for his second year on the Clare senior hurling panel, Shane is expected to receive more game-time in the Allianz National Hurling League where he will get an opportunity to show his worth in the Banner backline.
