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*Éire Óg’s Darren O’Brien. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
ÉIRE ÓG are the only team left standing in the Clare SHC that have players to have experienced the joy of lifting the Canon Hamilton, an advantage that they feel will give them an edge as they look to win back to back titles.
Sunday pits Éire Óg against a high-flying Inagh/Kilnamona and the prize is a return to the county final.
Having met five times in the last six championships, Éire Óg and Inagh/Kilnamona are well acquainted with each other, the most recent clash seeing the Ennis side prevail 3-21 1-17 in what was a turning point on their run to winning a first Clare SHC in thirty five years.
Both sides are well aware of what to expect from each other, admitted Éire Óg manager Gerry O’Connor. “We seem to have a knack of drawing each other in quarter-finals and semi-finals, this is our third or fourth time meeting, it’s been every second year more or less so you could be concerned that it is their turn this round. Ultimately both teams know exactly what they are facing, there hasn’t been a whole change in personnel in the last three years in terms of them and us so we’re very familiar with each other from that point of view, everbody knows exactly what they have to do and what they have to prepare for, ultimately while you look at little bit at the opposition as we all know your primary focus is on getting your own performance spot on”.
Adding some further intrigue is the involvement of ex Éire Óg manager Matt Shannon as Inagh/Kilnamona coach. “I know Noel Hehir (selector) personally very well too, I know Matt and he did a lot of good work with us for many years in Éire Óg. At the same time, he will be focused on getting his team right and we’ll be focused on getting ourselves right”.
What has changed since Éire Óg and Inagh/Kilnamona last met in the championship is of course the fact that the Canon Hamilton has resided in the county town following their deserved double success last season. “Until we got across the line and won a championship last year we were always very envious of Ballyea and Sixmilebridge, how once they won one that they were able to go and add to that, the belief and confidence that winning brings, knowing how to close out tight championship matches, you can talk about it for as long as you like but you have to go through the pain, we went through considerable pain for the bones of ten years before we got across the line, there is no silver bullet that allows you to get that belief, you have to go out and earn that, every game and victory in Clare you bloody well earn it, that is a significant advantage that we feel we would have over Inagh/Kilnamona in that regard”.
Aaron Fitzgerald remains the biggest injury concern for the champions, David McNamara and Jarlath Collins both missed out on Éire Óg’s quarter-final win over St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield in the Clare SFC on Sunday but are closer to featuring that Fitzgerald. “Aaron is a serious doubt and will be right up until the game, we will do a fitness test with him before the game, he warmed up with the footballers on Sunday evening and he wasn’t able to take part, he is the biggest single injury concern that we have at the moment,” O’Connor told The Clare Echo.
Absence of personnel has highlighted the importance of squad depth, the development of which has been a big focus for O’Connor during his second stint as manager. “If you go back to 2022 and the county final against Ballyea it is well documented that we didn’t really bring on a sub other than a blood sub that day, whereas for the last two years in the championship we’ve been able to bring on five subs in every game, we’ve used something like twenty one or twenty two players so far this year in the four games, the squad depth is hugely important to us and it was something we identified after the 2022 county final that we needed to develop. A huge part of the squad depth has been the quality of player coming out of the academy for the last three years which has helped enormously”.
Winning margins of twelve, two, nine and seventeen points have been secured by Éire Óg en route to a fifth semi-final in eight years. It brings with an argument that the Townies haven’t been tested as much as their fellow semi-finalists, a stance that O’Connor doesn’t agree with. “I’ve heard it a few times over the last few weeks and it is something I wouldn’t agree with at all. The Scariff game we all know that was a massive test, the reality is that on the day Scariff were probably the better team, they just suffered two or three injuries at vital stages of the last ten minutes, we were bringing on subs to improve things and they were bringing on subs because they had injured players, that was a massive test for us, the fact they are in a semi-final tells you there is a bit of strength in that group, Broadford gave us lots of it in that first half, they scored 0-17 against us in the first half in Shannon, if you take the goals out of the Crusheen first half, it ended up 4-18 0-18. The only difference between us this year and last year, even the county final we scored 0-17 but we created an awful lot of goal scoring opportunities in the county final, this year we seem to be converting those goal scoring opportunities”.
