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*Shane Daniels and the Éire Óg players in the pre-match parade. Photograph: Mike Brennan
WITH five senior championship medals now to his name, Shane Daniels has the distinction of keeping a clean sheet in both finals that he has lined out in goals for.
Daniels was between the posts as Éire Óg ran out 1-10 0-6 winners against Kilmurry Ibrickane to go joint top with Kilrush Shamrocks on the Clare SFC roll of honour.
An unused substitute in their 2000 win against Doonbeg, Shane kicked three points from centre forward as Éire Óg’s freetaker in their 2-9 0-13 win over Lissycasey in 2006. Midfielder on that side eighteen years ago, Peter Cosgrove hit one of their goals and alongside Daniels is now part of the Éire Óg management.
Nathan Murray’s emigration to Canada left Éire Óg in need of a goalkeeper which led to Shane’s move back to the goals, he’s remained there for the championship winning years of 2022 and 2024 where he remarkably kept clean sheets in both deciders.
Winning titles as you go gets even sweeter, he admitted. “Every game especially at my age that you win is sweet, it’s amazing”. His experience has led to the likes of Ronan Lanigan dubbing Shane with the nickname ‘Old Man Daniels’.
Despite his age, the forty three year old was well able to make leaps, saves and diving tackles in Sunday’s final. He had to slide off his line to stop the on-rushing Keelan Sexton with twenty seven minutes played in the game while it was another Sexton, this time Darragh that Shane produced a fine save from in the last attack of the game to keep that clean sheet intact. “I’m able to get down, getting up is the problem,” he quipped.
Unusually he was the busier of the two goalkeepers early on as Éire Óg fell three points behind. “We always try and start fast but we didn’t in fairness to Kilmurry Ibrickane who started really well, we were mishandling the ball and dropping the ball, maybe there was a bit of tension which can happen a team but I think the goal settled us, it came at the right time, it settled everyone and we started playing then”.
As they started to play, the Townies hit 1-3 without reply to get on top. “Once we were going we were going. It’s getting that first score sometimes is the hardest part, once you get that score you keep ticking away, the lads dug in, it was bad conditions and I think we got better as the game went on, we controlled the ball really well, we’re hugely delighted to get over the line”.
“We weren’t happy with our first half performance and we said that at half time, we said we needed to keep doing the right things with the ball especially today, that was the message to go out, outwork them and do the right thing with the ball when we got it and for the most part we did,” he added.
