EXPERIENCE of beating Kerry sides at schools’ level has strengthened the belief of Corofin as they go in search of Munster glory this Sunday.
Valuable lessons were learned in the 2020 Clare IFC and it is standing to Corofin this season, key forward and freetaker Gearoid Cahill outlined.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Gearoid noted, “The Clare championship is so tough. We learned a lesson from last year when we were pipped at the final hurdle by Doora/Barefield. Taking it a game at a time started back in Cooraclare against Naomh Eoin in July. We are on a roll now, we are a group of players, an ambitious young group, who want to improve our game and who want to win. Once we got out of Clare our approach is that there is another championship here for us. We are really looking forward to the weekend”.
He continued, “We have learned a lot from last year, maybe we were listening to too much and maybe we felt ourselves that we were favourites and we didn’t back it up. In fairness to Dougie, Geoff and the lads who came in this year, they put their shoulders to the wheel and told us to take it a game at the time and never give up. That showed in the county final against Kildysart, never rest on our laurels, we have never lost or won a game till the final whistle. That’s the main thing we have learned, take it minute by minute and game by game rather than maybe listening to a bit of talk”.
Joint captain of the Corofin/Ruan side that were crowned U21A hurling champions days before Christmas after defeating Newmarket-on-Fergus, Cahill said it hasn’t been difficult to juggle both codes. “We are doing it since we were six years of age. We are very lucky that we have two good management teams who are clubmen first, There are no hurling or football men or women in Corofin. It’s one club, when we were hurling it was a hurling week and when we were playing football, it was a football week.
“That momentum has carried us on. We are lucky in the club that we have really ambitious coaches and the ambitions of the younger players is really outstanding”.
Cahill went on “there are players who have been out of championship since August or September and we have been lucky that we are still playing championship and we were playing championship until three days before Christmas. We are very lucky in the club at the moment that we are really improving and motivated to do well”.
Experience of being on county and school squads that have had success against Kerry opponents will stand to them this weekend, the Mary Immaculate College student believed. “A couple of us have been on county squads and we have lost to Kerry opposition but a lot of us have come through St. Flannans and we have taken scalps of Kerry teams and got a great education turning over Tralee, Killarney and Dingle schools.
“We have experience of being on both sides of winning and losing against Kerry teams. We have never really played too much attention all year as to who we are playing but rather we have focused on our own game. We know that if we are with these lads with fifteen minutes to go we will give them one hell of a battle. There is a great confidence there are the moment to do well. This is a very different group to anything that I have been a part of . We are really focusing on ourselves and we are enjoying our football and that is the main thing”.
