*Newmarket-on-Fergus defender Mark Delaney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
NEWMARKET-ON-FERGUS find themselves in knockout territory as they take on county champions Feakle this Friday in the second round of the TUS Clare SHC.
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Despite a competitive opening half in the first round where they trailed Éire Óg by two points, second half goals from Marco Cleary and Darren O’Brien saw the Ennis side record a 2-24 1-18 victory.
Given that Feakle and Wolfe Tones drew in the other first round game in Group 3 it means Newmarket-on-Fergus must get a win in order to stay in the Clare SHC never mind progress further.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Newmarket-on-Fergus manager James Carrig outlined, “It’s knockout hurling for us now but the bottom line is that it’s still in our control. We’ve still two matched to try and get out of the group, that’s the way we’re looking at it. It’s a tough group and there’s not much between the teams but all eyes on the county champions Feakle. It’s a big challenge for us but we simply have to prove than we’re better than what we showed”.
Reflecting on their first round, the Blues boss stated, “It’s obviously not the start we wanted. I thought it was a very physical first half. We matched them especially around the middle, got on breaks and created chances but we just could take them. Our use of the ball wasn’t good enough. It’s not what we had been doing all year and maybe it was the pressure they were putting us under or something but we should have been ahead at half-time and we weren’t”.
Conceding 1-1 within the first ninety seconds of the second half proved very costly. “We left probably four or five scores out there but we were still in the game at half-time. But straight from the throw-in, we conceded a free straight away followed by a goal and that made us chase the game and it really changed matters from then on. In fairness they [Éire Óg] are a good team and used the ball well and we just couldn’t get back into the match. Look overall, it came down to small margins but if I was to some it up, I’d say that they just took their chances and we didn’t”.
Both green flags for Éire Óg drained life out of a somewhat poor Newmarket-on-Fergus challenge.“The goals were real sucker-punches. The first goal and the manner of it derailed us slightly and gave them the belief to drive on in the game. The second goal was a well-worked goal that came from deep and they had an overlap so we were fighting an uphill battle from there”.
Carrig continued, “We’ll have to learn from this now. We’re better than that. If you look at our performances in championship over the past few years, we’ve matched most of the big teams and we believe that we’ve a good team as well, it’s just that we didn’t show our true selves. Our use of the ball and decision-making needs to be better than that so that’s something that we need to rectify over the next two weeks”.
