*Barry Keane celebrates at the final whistle. Photograph: Ruth Griffin
WOLFE TONES showed steel and resolve to win the Clare IHC but their manager Barry Keane admitted it was a heartbreaking way for Tubber to lose out.
Cian O’Rourke struck the match-winning score from a free on sixty five minutes, a free which was awarded two minutes earlier by referee Gus Callaghan but the placed ball was moved forward, back and forward again before the corner forward split the posts.
Barry Keane’s first thoughts were with Tubber when speaking to The Clare Echo following their dramatic one point win. “My first thing is to mention Tubber because as I said to you in the preview, we absolutely knew everything was going to be thrown at us and we would never have begrudged Tubber if they had won that game or if there had been extra time because that is a heartbreaking way to lose a game.
“With two or three minutes to go we were thinking ‘we’re done, we’re gone’ after all the work and the effort we’ve put into it, with the nights and the sacrifices but we saw it before against Parteen/Meelick these lads have resolve, steel and a lot of character in them but the bit of experience shone through in the end. Relief, elation, there’s a lot of words to be used but overriding pride in that group. There was a lot of soul searching to be done after we went down last year but I think we answered that today, it is surreal and hard to take in”.
After losing both Aaron Cunningham and Daithí Lohan to hamstring injuries, the Tones needed to show that character to prevail. “Aaron had a rib injury coming into this and the whole county knew about it but credit to Aaron I called to him the day after he got injured and the first thing he said to me was ‘I’m playing’, to go off with his hamstring which thankfully had been good all year and then Daithí’s hamstring went again, it took everyone like Jack Cunningham getting off a flight at 5am this morning. All the hard nights had to stand to us and we got there, you could easily be talking to Pat Taaffe here because for them it is heartbreaking, they are an outstanding hurling club, this is not easy for me to take with us winning and them losing because if they had won I’d be the first one to go up and shake everyone of their hands because they are just a fantastic club”.
When asked if the outcome came down to decisions made, Keane said, “There’s an element of that too. I haven’t seen the stats but we were giving away too many frees, the last one Gus obviously thought it was a free but can I say it was right or wrong, it was a hard thing to do, if we were on the receiving end of it then I’d probably be as angry as anyone but there’s definitely that element to it. We’ve seen it in big games over the years, refereeing decisions come to the fore and it was just unfortunate for Tubber, they are unbelievable”.
Meeting his family amid the celebrations was emotional for Barry. “I met my Mam there and she is in hysterics, it is an emotional day, it is a big day for me and my family. We’re going to enjoy this but the footballers have a big game next weekend, please God they get over it because we need to be up senior”.
On what lies ahead for their return to the top tier, Keane outlined, “We’ll have to step it up again because there’s good teams in there, performances will have to lift and training will have to go up another bit but we’ve put a lot of work in this year, we’re really looking forward to getting back there, we’ve good forwards who will have learned a lot from this year, I’m speechless and for Tubber it is heartbreaking”.
Before then, they meet the Cork champions in the Munster club semi-final on November 17th.
