*Jamie Stack. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
LEARNINGS FROM round one must be applied by St Breckan’s if they are to remain in the Clare SFC.
Last year’s county finalists fell to an opening round defeat at the hands of St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield, losing 1-9 1-7.
Reflecting on their two point loss, St Breckan’s boss Declan O’Keeffe said, “to be fair St. Joseph’s were deserving winners. They looked like they wanted it a small bit more, they put some great passages of play together.”
A former goalkeeper with The Parish during their run to back to back county deciders in 2011 and 2012, he added, “we knew it was going to be a battle, they had a lot of work done, that’s the way it turned it out, there was some good defending at the end by them when we might have scored another goal. Fair play to them. They deserved it on the evening”.
Absence of key players was a blow for the North Clare outfit who had to introduce captain Cian Burke from the bench, the Clare panellist had been ill prior to the contest. “We don’t want to be making excuses, yes a few lads were down with flu. When you are looking at Galway last weekend playing payers that aren’t fully fit, you don’t want to do that. Conor Shannon came in for us and worked awful hard in the first half, when we were playing against the elements and we were reasonably happy.
“St. Joseph’s were putting pressure on and forced us into a few mistakes. They pressed up real high. It’s the learnings you can take from it. We will park that and move on. It’s day one and our next game is against Kildysart and they won’t be easy either. In this championship all teams are very even and any one can beat the other on a given day. We will dust ourselves off, we will take stock and try and learn from this”.
