*Declan Downes on the sideline with Ennistymon as selector Michael Rouine takes notes. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
A DIFFICULT sixty minutes awaits Ennistymon manager Declan Downes this Friday as he faces off against his native Kilmihil in the second round of the TUS Clare SFC.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
Downes represented Kilmihil at all levels, he was part of the side in 2008 to win the Clare IFC and was among their frequent scorers that season.
He is in his first year over the Ennistymon senior footballers who picked up a first round win over Doonbeg less a fortnight ago while Kilmihil come into the game off the back of a fifteen point loss to Lissycasey. Back to back defeats pose a strong risk of Kilmihil ending up in another relegation dogfight.
Speaking to The Clare Echo about the prospect of facing his native club, Declan admitted it would be a tricky hour in Doonbeg. “They are my club but I have a job to do, my loyalty is with Ennistymon for this year, I will always be a Kilmihil man but I have a job with Ennistymon, I’m with the group, I’ll keep my head down and get on with doing the job, I know exactly what is coming from Kilmihil, a proud club and I’m proud to call myself a Kilmihil man but I’ve a job to do. We’ll be focused on them, we know they will ask serious questions of us, it wasn’t a complete performance by us so we’ll see what comes of that”.
Reflecting on their first round 2-9 0-14 win over Doonbeg, Downes said, “Most of the people in the previews and in our own conversations as a management group said this was going to be a dogfight and a step up in terms of anything before in the league, it’s an excellent Doonbeg team who are going to challenge you in every sort of way, they will never give up and they fought till the end, we’re lucky we came out the right side of it but a win is a win, it sets us up for game two”.
They led by six points at half time with their showing in the middle third central to this, he felt. “We got on top in the middle third of the field, we got huge performances from our guys in the middle, Eoin Rouine was outstanding I felt ably assisted by Brendy (Rouine) and Mark Kelleher, the guys were winning the ground battle then which is hugely important, if you’re not dominating the air then you need to be getting the second ball and getting your chest over the ball to give yourself primary possession to get on the front foot”.
In advance of their first round tie, the former Clare selector had spoke of the “tremendous character” within Ennistymon during his preview with The Clare Echo.
Having got over the line in round one, he was very pleased with their efforts considering they were down seven starting members of their team which lined out in last year’s semi-final. “I also said during the week that it is next man up and if you build your principles of play and you’re clear on those that people should be able to plug in if you’ve done your job well enough if the team have bought into what you’re trying to do, I think we’ve that from the team, we’re clear on what we’re trying to achieve, there’s a great spirit about them, they have weathered some serious traumas this year and traumas on the field over the last number of years, I’m very proud of the resilience in them and we saw that today. It makes an interesting fight for jerseys going forward, we’d hope to get a few bodies back, we were down seven to eight players”.
There was more urgency in Ennistymon’s championship opener and this approach must be maintained for full games, Declan stressed. “I’d have a preference if they showed that (urgency) for sixty minutes but in the first half our attacking play was good, we were patient when we needed to be, if an opportunity was on the go quick we went quick and our attacks we were happy that we were getting our attacking numbers high in terms of shot, we hadn’t enough on the scoreboard at half time for the dominance we had. We knew what was coming in the second half, Doonbeg played with the slight breeze and they’ve some excellent shooters, Mikie Tubridy gave an exhibition of two point scorers and it shows the value of those and the threat they can cause to a lead very quickly. It was good from our lads but we’d prefer if we kept it going for the sixty minutes”.
