*Feakle captain Oisin Donnellan. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
HAVING an extra week to prepare for Monday’s Clare SHC did Feakle players “the world of good”.
Storm Ashley led to the deferral of the county final by eight days. While it had been anticipated that Sixmilebridge’s familiarity with finals would have helped them deal with this, it was in fact Feakle that benefitted from the delay, captain Oisin Donnellan said. “It’s still hard to believe we’re after achieving it to be honest,” he admitted.
Following in the footsteps of his father Val by winning a Clare SHC medal, Oisin outlined that they stressed the need of leaving everything out on the field. “Sixty minutes was all we had left in the championship and we just spoke about having no regrets – that we were going to be the hardest working team. It kind of showed. Lads were just breaking ball and it was a real team performance. We had a few goal chances that we didn’t take but we just stuck to the process. We just kept on playing the way we know we’re capable of playing. That was it. Everyone to a man gave as much as they could out on the pitch and that’s as much as you could ask for”.
Overnight oats and a slice of toast was the breakfast of choice for Oisin who is a familiar and popular face at Matt Waters Fruit & Veg in Turnpike. “We were out pucking, myself and Fiachra (Donnellan) and spoke about not feeling that nervous. We were just really looking forward to it,” he said of the mood in the hours leading up to the game.
He scored two points from wing forward and said, “The extra week’s break personally done me the world of good. There was savage hype before the week but there wasn’t as much last week. All the media stuff was done two weeks earlier at that stage. It was drawn out and we were just really looking forward to coming out today and just giving a savage performance. We’d trained the Sunday morning at 10 o’clock and lads were absolutely hopping. It was a savage session”.
His point on the fifty third minute ended a Sixmilebridge run of four points in succession. “Shane (McGrath) did all the hard work for it (his crucial point to snap SMB’s scoring run after the goal) and gave it into me. I just had the shot but it’s different lads stepping up in different moments. You saw Ronan O’Connor there today – he must have covered every blade of grass. Conn Smyth came out with savage ball. Adam, Eibhear, Oisin Clune. It was a massive team performance,” the victorious captain told The Clare Echo.
