*Broadford’s Darren Chaplin. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
BEFORE A ball was pucked in this year’s championship, Broadford set out with the target of heading into the final round with a chance of making of the last eight and that is the position they are in.
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Despite leading for the majority of the first round, they fell to a 1-18 2-12 loss to Clooney/Quin but bounced back to defeat Corofin 5-25 4-10 to ensure Sunday’s tie with Inagh/Kilnamona determines who qualifies from Group 2 to the knockout stages.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Broadford coach Ger Hickey outlined that they aspired to be heading into the final round still in the mix of qualifying for the quarter-finals. “Our aim at the start of the championship was to be still in with a shout for quarter-final place come the last round and that’s exactly what has happened. Look, Inagh/Kilnamona are a seriously loaded team with a huge amount of talent and we really struggled last year in the second half against them after putting in a really good first half ourselves”.
It’s exactly the same position as last year when Broadford and Inagh/Kilnamona crossed swords, both needing a win to advance when they met in the third round in Cusack Park. Aidan McCarthy produced a supreme display for Inamona on that day as they recorded a 4-19 0-16 win, a tie that left Broadford with plenty of learnings according to Hickey. “We’ve a lot to learn from last year but it’s also a huge opportunity to push on now as a positive result would put us through so we’re really looking forward to it”.
Following the first round, their focus was on bouncing back. “After the game against Clooney/Quin, we were disappointed with the result as we thought that we’d probably done enough in the game to pull through. They took us out at the end which was hard to deal with but the bottom line is that we performed well against Clooney/Quin which meant that we were positive going in against Corofin.
“Corofin are a well drilled team and I knew that at first hand as when I was with Dromin Athlacca I came across them in the Munster Intermediate campaign so I knew the quality that they had. They actually turned us over that day in Corofin so while the final scoreline doesn’t suggest it, we really only pushed out the margin in the final ten minutes. We got a break or two, perhaps a fortuitous goal but I felt that it was Niall O’Farrell’s first goal that really got us going at the start of the second half and we never looked back from there,” he said.
Clooney/Quin’s place in the quarter-finals is guaranteed but they’re eager to maintain their winning streak, manager Fergal Lynch explained. “I saw Corofin play against Broadford and they were exceptional in the first half and Broadford sucker punched them with a couple of goals in the second half. We’re taking every game step by step, there’s six matches ultimately to be won in this championship and we’ve two won and going for a third in two weeks’ time”. They face Corofin at 2pm in Clarecastle on Sunday.
Reflecting on their second round win over Inagh/Kilnamona, Lynch stated, “We knew this game was going to go right down to the wire towards the end because they [Inagh-Kilnamona] were a little more seasoned and developed than us so to win a battle like that was huge. You could see their quality from the start. We certainly didn’t expect to concede those two early goals [to Aidan McCarthy] and we had to reshuffle things and bring Darragh [Keogh] back which kind of worked for us”.
Emerging from the group having battled off relegation last season represents huge progress for his youthful side. “We trained really hard throughout the Clare Cup campaign with the aim of trying to get out of this group. In years gone by, Clooney would have been in positions like this and come out on the wrong side of it so thankfully so far against Broadford and Inagh-Kilnamona we coming out on the right side of tight games and battles.
“We got criticised a lot for our performance against Broadford despite being sucker-punched for two early goals and the brilliance of Niall O’Farrell on the day. We knew that we had prepared and played really well coming into that game so we backed ourselves to eventually come out on top against Broadford and we backed ourselves again today and thankfully the lads stepped up to that performance. We started three lads that won a minor A title here last year. Jerry O’Connor got the winner, Sean Mc [Namara] played as if he lined out at corner-back for the last twenty years and Pa Finneran made his debut today so it’s great that we can give those lads the opportunity and thankfully they stepped up to the mark”.
