An unforgettable sporting week in Clonlara

Eimear Begley, Maeve Donnellan and Laura Foley. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill

A CLEARLY delighted Truagh/Clonlara mentor Ryan Morris was lost for words. “Unbelievable, I cannot put words on this”, was his first reaction moments after the final whistle.

“We faced these moments in the last few years, they have been so hard on us, the last few minutes, not again. We just wanted to get that one chance you cannot think about, you get one chance and you have to go for it and what a strike by Áine. We said go for it. It will go down in history this week in the club let there be no regrets, no point in sitting back, die on your sword, if you lose you lose, no regrets”, he said as he reflected on what had just happened.

Past disappointments were used to motivate Truagh/Clonlara, Ryan said. “We had lost the last two. I have never seen a group like this. I don’t think any other team in the county would do what we did today, with the injuries we have had. We always believed, not once did the players mention an injury all year long, it was just the next girl up. What a week for the club, I will never forget it”.

The club mentor who is also part of the Clare camogie management team had no doubt but that “the hurling win was a huge boost, it got an extra 5 to 10 per cent out of them. They wanted to go back to this venue and show what they could do. Look at the crowd here today, how proud they are”.

The delighted team mentor went on to pay a warm tribute to the beaten finalists. “Scariff/Ogonnelloe are so unlucky not to have won another and I have no doubt but that they will be back again and they will be using this loss as fuel and I hope we are back again next year to face them, we have had great battles with them. We used the loss of the last two as motivation, all we wanted was Scariff- Ogonnelloe in the final. They bring out the best in us. We will celebrate for a few days, we will be ready for Munster, we want to go on and represent the county well like our opponents of today have done”.