Breffni Horner picks the breaking ball from John Conlon and Páraic O’Loughlin. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
A FIRST HALF tally of eleven wides was too much for Crusheen to come back from but in the midst of their disappointment remained a strong sense of pride from Michael Browne.
Five points was the final margin in Sunday’s county final as Crusheen lost out to a dominant Clonlara side.
There were no complaints with the outcome from Michael Browne who was part of the Crusheen management side alongside Cronan Dillon, Paddy Vaughan, Gearoid O’Donnell, Alan Tuohy and coach Aidan Harte. “I’m really proud of the lads, on the day Clonlara were that bit better and that bit better all the time.
“We made life really hard for ourselves in the first half by having eleven wides, that made it really difficult. I was sitting watching it in the first half, some of the shots we hit that went wide, Clonlara repeated them but they went over so if it’s for you, it’s for you. I’m really proud of the fact that we brought it back, we were back in the game until they got their third goal, we had pushed up to try really go for it and sometimes when you do that you get caught and we got caught, sin é”.
For their comprehensive wins over Newmarket-on-Fergus and Scariff in the quarter-final and semi-final respectively, Crusheen started proceedings in a very strong fashion. They didn’t commence in such rip-roaring fashion but instead needed to produce a heroic finish after Oisin O’Donnell’s forty fourth minute goal brought them back to within three points.
Browne reflected, “Considering where we were two months ago, it is phenomenal that we were within five points at the finish, we were there with a few minutes to go until that goal went in. I’m really proud of them, congratulations to Clonlara who delivered a really good team performance, really strong in all positions all over the field, really good and the fact that we could be that close to them in fairness is brilliant that we came that close, we’re really disappointed that we didn’t do better but I’m still really proud of what happened in the year”.
Hope remains for hurling in Crusheen, he maintained. “There is always a strong hurling ethic in the parish, hopefully the game will be there for many years to come and hopefully today will have helped that as well”.
