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*Kilmaley’s Eoin Enright. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
UNBEATEN KILMALEY have very high competition for places on their starting team with players “absolutely mad” to break into the first fifteen while Scariff are determined to roll over despite the end of their championship aspirations.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SHC is with thanks to The Temple Gate Hotel.
Wins over Ballyea and Cratloe have secured Kilmaley’s place in the knockout stages of the TUS Clare SHC before a sliotar has been struck in the third round when they meet Scariff in Cusack Park at 18:30 on Saturday evening.
Manager Brian Culbert is pleased with their run to date and feels they will get stronger with increasing competition for places. “We still have three or four more players that aren’t on the team yet but should be playing senior and are doing everything to get on the team but the competition for places is so high at the moment and we have one or two more hopefully coming back from their travels this week as well to make things even more interesting at training. So we have fellas here absolutely mad to get on the team and they’ve two weeks now to put their shoulders to the wheel and see can they make it”.
He explained, “In this day and age, there’s so such thing as a set starting 15, sometimes you have to move the chess pieces to suit each match and opposition so there’s a role for everyone on different days and that’s all we can ask of them”.
Among those back in the mix is Clare footballer Brian McNamara who lined out in the half-forward line for Kilmaley in last year’s championship.
Culbert is determined to finish their group run with a one hundred percent record. “We’ve Scariff next and they’re getting stronger by the game so regardless of the other result in the group we’ve got to go and beat Scariff as winning is the only real guarantee in this championship”.
Having won games in the first and second round last year before falling to Cratloe in the final round, Kilmaley are anxious that they finish with three wins from three in 2025. “We’d two wins last year too and it meant nothing so we’re happy to have gotten two performances and four points but we were in the exact same spot twelve months ago.
“Look, we said that we’d better the first half from the last day [against Ballyea] and I think we did that to be level at the break having played into the breeze and after that we just drove on in the second half, got the breaks and a few goals to come through. That said with ten minutes to go, there was only six points between the teams and a Cratloe goal at that stage would have changed the game again. But the subs that came on made an awful difference as thy brought a new energy and freshness to the whole thing”.
Scariff manager, Donal Moloney noted that while they are out of the race for the Canon Hamilton, they won’t be lying down against the Group 4 leaders. “We may be out of the championship but that won’t take anything from the game against Kilmaley. After all, these are all ferocious games as this championship gets more and more competitive every year. Every team is preparing to a higher and higher level and you can see that in the quality of some of the games. So we’ll look forward to the game against Kilmaley and we’ll give it everything again and see what happens”.
Reflecting on their defeats to Cratloe and Ballyea, the former Clare joint manager said, “It was always going to be a tough group and our boys battled to the end in both games but missed out by only a puck of the ball twice. They did some very good things and also made some mistakes along the way so when these type of games are so marginal, you always point to ifs and buts afterward. We had a couple of goal chances and when we did get the goal at the end, we had five chances to equalise but didn’t take any of them and that ultimately was the difference between the teams in this game.
“Perhaps Cratloe and Ballyea’s greater experience slightly showed as this is still a very young bunch. This year alone, we’ve introduced five ore debutantes along with all the debutantes over the previous two years so it was always going to be a bit of a journey for Scariff and the bottom line is that I’m very proud of this bunch as there’s great character and great lads in that dressing room so I’ve no doubt that we’ll be back,” Moloney told The Clare Echo.
