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James Curran bursts forward with Jack McInerney chasing after him. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
ST JOSEPH’S DOORA/BAREFIELD must take down “one of the big teams” if they are to carry through on their ambitions of becoming a force at senior level.
By Derek Dormer
Last year’s quarter-finalists are determined to build on the progress made since their 2020 Clare IFC success. They came up short in their opening round where Cratloe ran out winners on a 2-10 0-14 scoreline.
While The Parish kept Cratloe to 0-04 in the second half, the damage had been done despite their best efforts. “We have a great bunch of lads. We knew we had underperformed in that first half. We know we are better than we showed in that period. We coughed up soft goals with silly mistakes and we have to cut them out if we are to be contenders in any Championship. To be honest we are gutted. We feel it was an opportunity lost and those goals were big big scores but what character we showed,” Doora/Barefield boss Donagh Vaughan stated.
He said, “We set ourselves a goal at half time to get it back to a five point game in the first ten minutes, we had it down to four inside three minutes. We drove on, we dominated the whole second half and we could have had a goal ourselves. We came here to win and we are disappointed we didn’t. We will dust ourselves down and go again but sooner or later we have to push aside one of those big teams.
“We are a young side and we have great young lads coming through too but we have to start winning these big games and we will start winning these games. Today we were beaten but we are far from out”.
Cratloe manager, Colm Collins was satisfied to emerge with the win. “Doora/Barefield put us to the pin of our collar today. The game was in doubt right to the end but it was no more than we expected. They’ve got some excellent players. I’ve been involved with the Hannans, Tom McDonald and Cian McDonagh, all top players. They’re well coached by Bobby this year running off the shoulder popping passes. Bobby is an outstanding coach and you can see the work he has done with them. It was a great contest and I’m delighted we got the two points”.
“It was vital we kept possession at the end because it was helter skelter and fairly frantic at times. Thankfully we held on and the way they came back at us gives us plenty to work on giving me the proverbial stick to beat them with. It was an open entertaining game with good football played by both and I’m relieved and delighted we got the win”.
