*Truagh/Clonlara’s Roisin Begley in action. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
NOT SHOWING up on the biggest day was the hardest aspect for Truagh/Clonlara to deal with from their All-Ireland final defeat but they are optimistic of making a return trip to Croke Park in the not too distant future.
Galway side Sarsfields secured a fourth AIB All-Ireland senior camogie club title at the expense of the Clare champions last Sunday.
They got off to a blistering with three early points, two from Siobhán McGrath inside sixty seconds prompting the Truagh/Clonlara management to make positional changes. She struck for goal on twenty one minutes to open up a lead but the Clare champions did lead on two occasions in the opening half via Eimear Kelly and Áine O’Loughlin but their display was too nervous to trouble the experienced Sars.
Truagh/Clonlara coach Eoin Powell told The Clare Echo following their 1-17 0-6 loss, “We’ve just reflected on it with the girls there. We’ve ended up being one of the top two teams in the country and were the first Clare club to contest an All-Ireland Senior Final. But we also have to admit that we came up with against a serious Sarsfields side.
“They really are magnificent whereas we probably didn’t show up and that’s probably the hardest aspect to deal with from today. But look, We’ll just have to learn from this now but it has been a brilliant experience overall. I don’t know how many people in Clonlara have dreamed of playing in Croke Park so now these girls have so that’s a massive honour really”.
Trailing by 1-9 0-4 at the interval, the South-East Clare side knew they were in a tricky spot. “It was nip and tuck early on but as the game wore on, it just kind of got away from us and before we knew it we we going in at half-time seven or eight points down and it was tough to come back from that.
“As one of the girls just said inside, we don’t tend to do things at the first time of asking, it has to be at the second or third attempt so fingers crossed we can get the opportunity again to come back here. The reality is though that we’re back down the bottom of the hill again, having to fight to even get out of our group in Clare so we’ll see how that goes in time,” the coach added.
Resilience has been very evident within their ranks over the past three seasons when they claimed their first senior county and provincial honours. “With the amount of injuries we’ve had over the past few years, the bond that’s there within this squad is just crazy, It’s never-say-die with them, they don’t ever seem to give up. Someone described them as a boxer that went twelve rounds with Mike Tyson and somehow managed to knock him out in the final round. They just keep coming back and don’t know how to be defeated so I’m sure they will bounce back again.
“Everyone is behind this team and to be honest I don’t think there’s anybody left back in Clonlara so I’m sure there are people rushing home to turn back on the lights. Look, it’s tough to take today but we’ll regroup over the next few weeks and bounce back again. You just can’t fully prepare for it. It’s something that you dream of and perhaps you can get lost in it a small bit as you look to soak it all in. Look, overall, if you told us at the start of February when we first met that we were going to be in Croke Park on the 15th of December playing in an All-Ireland Final we’d have bitten your hand off so it has just been a dream to get here,” he concluded.
