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*Martin O’Leary celebrates at the final whistle in Miltown Malbay. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
KILMIHIL want to become ‘a seasoned senior team’ after consolidating their status in the top tier.
Crowned intermediate champions in 2023, Kilmihil ensured they will be playing senior football for a successive season after coming out on top in the relegation final against Corofin on a score of 1-6 0-4.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Kilmihil manager Michael Doran was a pleased and relieved figure. “We’d have taken it at the start of the year if you told us we could secure our spot, we didn’t go about it the way we wanted to the way the year went but when it mattered today the boys stood up”.
He said, “A lot goes into a senior campaign, you don’t want to be the team going down because you can look at it as the waste of a year, it is a lot of work put in for nothing so I’m delighted for them because they deserve it”.
Beginning their campaign with a fifteen point loss to Lissycasey and a twenty three point clipping to Éire Óg was a tough start to life back in senior for Kilmihil who showed an improvement when taking on Kilmurry Ibrickane and Doonbeg.
Doran outlined, “when we looked at the first two games we know we weren’t at it and just didn’t turn up, we turned a corner in the third round I know Kilmurry Ibrickane beat us but we put in a much better performance, the last day against Doonbeg I thought if we got our noses in front we could have won that game, it was very tight but they are a seasoned senior team and know how to see it out. With the conditions, we knew today was just going to be about hard work, that is what it was”.
Their cause was not helped when they lost Dan Keating to a head injury in the second quarter. “He took a bang to the head, when it is anything to do with the head there isn’t much point in risking it so we knew we had a couple of lads on the bench to bring on and thankfully they were able to see us over. You’re taking a physical presence out of the game in conditions like that when you need it. The boys stood up today, there was animal effort from them”.
To secure a successive campaign in the top flight is back for the West Clare side, the Armagh native commented. “Doonbeg saw us away the last day because they are a seasoned senior team, there is a craft there that you have to learn, you don’t learn it from playing intermediate you learn it from playing senior, that is what we want for ourselves, we have the opportunity to go again and build on it so all in all we’re delighted”.
Five of their panel exited after winning the intermediate title in 2023, Mikey said they would love to have some of them back in 2025. “You never know what is going to happen with lads going travelling, we’ll reassess in a few weeks and see what we have for next year, certainly we will be going out to lads that we lost this year to see if we can get the numbers back up because we were a thin squad this year and it showed at times, we have to build on it”.
