*Mark McInerney and Paul Madden stand for the national anthem. Photograph: Paul Madden
A PROUD ÉIRE Óg man to the core, it’s fitting in a way that such a genuine clubman like Paul Madden holds the distinction of managing their senior footballers to back to back titles for the first time.
Unsurprisingly, Paul was beaming moments after the final whistle of their 0-09 0-06 win over Ennistymon.
Many things made him proud, how they managed the game was among them. “It was never about doing back to back it was about winning every game as I said to you during the week, when you’re in a final you can start to think about the possibility of a back to back. The hurt of last week really stuck in, we asked the lads to bottle the emotion and bring it out on the field and not get too carried away with it. We had a chance of winning a game that we would have lost in the past, today was a tough grind but once we came out the right side of it I didn’t really care”.
Attention was paid to Ennistymon’s defensive approach with focus placed on this by Éire Óg prior to the final. “We planned for it and we knew it was going to be like that. Most teams nowadays are going to try and keep their defensive side of things going. I’ve been at all of Ennistymon’s games this year, they’d beaten the favourites every single week, they’ve a never say die attitude and they kept going till the end again. We haven’t conceded a goal in two years domestically which is some achievement even with the young fella (Shane Daniels) in goal, he had a great save to pull off today and once we kept the goals out we knew we would have a chance to win”.
Over the past two seasons, Madden’s charges have overcome all tests thrown their way including Kilmurry Ibrickane, St Breckan’s, Corofin, St Joseph’s Miltown, Clondegad and Doonbeg. “We’ve been beaten once in the championship in two years and that was by Clondegad last year, that’s what kick started us and gave us the belief that we needed to work harder, that has been the mantra for us for the last two years, hard work, you can be as good as you like but if you’re not willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter. The lads worked really hard especially in the second half today”.
Winning back to back titles was very special for the owner of the Temple Gate Hotel. “Personally for me this one is extra special, we lost a couple of club members Pat Fitzpatrick being one, I lit a candle for him last night to be honest because he definitely was looking down on us and helping to push Aaron Fitzgerald an extra foot in the air to catch those balls and come out with them and Darren O’Neill, it’s extra special for me and also on the basis as a player I experienced the opportunity to win back to back titles but we lost it, for this group of lads to do that it makes them a very good team,” Paul told The Clare Echo.
In his acceptance speech, captain Gavin Cooney paid tribute to Pat Fitzpatrick and Jack Heaslip in a classy gesture. “Jack and Pat were great clubmen. You can see it today, the people on the pitch last week commiserating with the hurlers are all here today celebrating with us, it’s a one club model and in fairness the players really buy into that”.
