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*Éire Óg defender Jarlath Collins. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
ÉIRE Óg’s senior hurlers are “thrilled” to be back in the quarter-finals in what their manager has coined “the craziest championship that I can ever remember”.
Three wins from three saw Éire Óg claim top spot in Group 2 ahead of a quarter-final showdown with Wolfe Tones. Scariff were the other side to emerge from their group, their third round win over Crusheen was sufficient to get them over the line as they won by more than the necessary nine points.
All teams left standing are capable of lifting the Canon Hamilton, 2025 Clare SHC winning manager Gerry O’Connor stated. “There’s no doubt that all eight teams left will feel that they can now go on and win the championship. I mean this is the craziest championship that I can ever remember so there’s no team that you draw that you’ll be able to say that you definitely have their number.
“I mean there’s no longer any handy groups in Clare and the last three rounds have shown that so it’s all to play for the eight lucky teams that come out of their groups,” he stated.
Speaking to The Clare Echo after advancing to an eleventh successive quarter-final, O’Connor said, “We’re thrilled to get back to a quarter-final first and foremost. This has turned out to be a hugely competitive championship so getting to a quarter-final by whatever means necessary is the primary ambition for every team. We were very happy with our start today as we’d probably been creating goal chances all year and some we’ve taken and other days they haven’t come off for us but they did today and in fairness to the lads, they took those chances really well”.
Round three saw Éire Óg raid for three goals in the first eleven minutes with Shane O’Donnell and the Cleary brothers, Marco and Luca raising green flags. Danny Russell converted a penalty at the beginning of the second half as they overcame Broadford 4-20 0-23. “We needed those goals because to be fair to Broadford, they have some extremely good players so while we were comfortably ahead after only ten minutes, they took over that middle third. We found it very hard to contain the likes of Niall O’Farrell, Paddy Donnellan and Diarmuid Moloney and they [Broadford] got it back to three points and it became a real championship battle at that stage. We did finish the half with a few points and then got the penalty straight after the break which put a real gloss on that lead but overall while the scoreline might not have always reflected that, we got a fair test off Broadford.
O’Connor was beaming with the performances of Shane O’Donnell fresh from his inter-county retirement. “On the really positive side of things, I don’t think Shane O’Donnell has ever been in the form for us that he’s in at the moment. He has come back really refreshed after Clare, he’s leading on and off the pitch and is very focused. Himself, [David], Reidy, Danny [Russell], Ciaran [Russell] and Aaron [Fitzgerald] are really driving it on”.
