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*Éire Óg defender Liam Corry. Photograph: Mike Brennan.
ANY OF THE eight teams left standing in the TUS Clare SHC are capable of lifting the Canon Hamilton, Éire Óg manager Gerry O’Connor maintained.
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Three wins from three games saw Éire Óg seal top spot in Group 3 and more importantly a place in the quarter-finals. Monday’s draw has pitted them against Inagh/Kilnamona in what will be a repeat of their last eight clash of 2024 which went the way of Inamona by a margin of two points.
Speaking to The Clare Echo following their 3-16 1-18 win over Feakle on Sunday, O’Connor outlined, “there are eight teams left and anyone can win it. If those who are putting us in the favourites category were looking at the first half they would not be making us favourites. We know we need to perform every day”.
Training and competition for places has the Ennis side in a strong position, he acknowledged. “There were a lot of subs very disappointed not to be starting when we named the team on Thursday night. Training has been absolutely phenomenal but it didn’t look like that in the first half. There were flashes of what we can do in the second half. We had trained really well all week and we were expecting a huge performance, it was a game we wanted to win”.
He felt Éire Óg struggled on Feakle’s puckout and they will be keen to improve how they adapt during games. “It was put up to us for an awful long time but we were playing the county champions and we have always had trouble playing Feakle They are a fiercely committed team. They had injuries but it took us a long time to come to grips with their number 9 (Ronan O’Connor). They were creating a third midfielder on their puckout and we struggled to come to grips with that”.
More energy and a better supply of ball to their danger men saw them get on top of proceedings in the second half, he felt. “It was the energy we brought at the start of the second half that changed the game. We were able to get ball into Danny (Russell) and we were working through the lines more. Their number 9 created huge challenges for us in the first half and it took us ‘till half time to get on top of that. Obviously losing Aaron (Fitzgerald) was a bit of a disaster. We reorganised and it probably created a bit more space for us to work with after Aaron was sent off”.
