*Daniel Walsh. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
THREE YEARS APART from Jack Daly is viewed as an awful long time for Kilmurry Ibrickane, organising a reunion is on their minds as they chase a seventeenth senior title.
On Sunday, Dublin’s victory over Kerry in the All-Ireland football final saw Stephen Cluxton, James McCarthy and Michael Fitzsimons win their ninth senior championships. Within the Kilmurry Ibrickane squad, Enda Coughlan, Michael O’Dwyer and Evan Talty have already claimed nine Clare SFC medals.
Their first senior medals were obtained in 2002, O’Dwyer starting in the full-forward line, Coughlan coming on as a substitute and Talty an unused substitute on the day. Their roles within the panel have changed in the interval and the amount of game-time afforded to them is rarely a sixty minute appearance.
Nonetheless their service to the club is to be lauded. Kilmurry Ibrickane boss James Murrihy is one of the many individuals within Quilty, Mullagh, Coore and Annagh to appreciate their contributions. “Their mantra is you are retired long enough, you might as well keep playing while the opportunities present themselves, it’s more apparent in Kilmurry Ibrickane because of the championships we’ve won but we’re no different to other clubs with the older lads trying to drive it on. Having looked at the first two weekends of games in the hurling championship, almost every club has four or five older players to rely on”.
History within the club predates all of the senior management and panel, Murrihy is quick to point out. “To be honest in anything you start out with you want to win, when you have a group of players you can only put fifteen on the pitch and bring on five more, Kilmurry Ibrickane was there long before me and the group of players we have. We have one common goal and that is to win a championship”.
Four years is the longest period since the 2002 win that Kilmurry Ibrickane have waited to win the title, it occurred twice from 2004 until 2008 and again from 2012 to 2016. Seeing Éire Óg’s current dominance will fuel the appetite of the Bricks. “I wouldn’t say there’s a level of impatience here, for a long time we were the hunted on and off every year, now we are the hunters. There’s a group of clubs like Éire Óg, Ennistymon, St Breckan’s, Lissycasey and Corofin who will all be looking to lead the pack. Each year the championship brings on a life of its own, Éire Óg are the standard bearers now and we’re in the chasing pack”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Murrihy pinpointed what would be key to them pushing up towards the top of this chasing pack. “No more than anything else, it’s all about having the hunger and desire, the want and the will to go the extra step and do more than the previous year. We’re talking here on the Monday morning after the All-Ireland football final, there was a definitely renewed vigour and hunger in the Dublin team to not go out on a losing way and if three or four of them retire this year then they retire as All-Ireland champions. Limerick have brought a different type of hunger to winning the four in a row but no matter what sport you are playing whether its football, rugby, soccer or camogie, it is all about having that hunger and desire”.
Arguably the manner of their exit from last year’s championship where they lost a penalty shootout to Ennistymon in the semi-finals will certainly have enlarged their own hunger levels.
Players and management have returned more determined as a result of this loss, Murrihy admitted. “Genuinely there was a bit of soul searching done and it made for long winter, as a group pf players they’ve come back hoping to right the wrongs of last year, when you break it down we had the game won at three different stages, we were up a point in normal time, going into injury time and being three up in extra time. Ennistymon battled against us like they had done all year, especially coming from their first round defeat to us, they almost went out to Doonbeg and got better as the championship went on. You only get out what you put in”.
He continued, “no more than anything else you try to improve year on year. It is my second year as manager, the level of soul searching has been done and we’re not talking about 2022 anymore because it is finished with, 2023 is a new year and I’m happier with the most part with our Cusack Cup campaign, we were more competitive with our games this year than last year in the league and we’ve added strength in depth to the panel”.
New faces have also joined James in the management team. Ex Clare players Odran O’Dwyer and David Russell have departed for coaching roles with St Breckan’s and Doonbeg with Kevin Sexton also bowing out as a selector. Into the frame comes Galway native James Mannion as coach and Kilmihil’s Enda O’Halloran as selector, a role he also fulfilled when Murrihy was manager of the Clare intermediate ladies football team.
Indeed they will face off with O’Dwyer and St Breckan’s this Friday in Cusack Park in what is their first championship meeting against the men from Doolin, Kilshanny and Lisdoonvarna since they won the 2019 intermediate title. “To be fair since coming up from intermediate they’ve got themselves into being a top four team and were unlucky not to make a semi-final last year. They have an element of continuity with Declan involved again, it will be a tough battle and like everything else they’ve built a consistency over the year with the Cusack Cup and not having a massive amount of players on the county squad which has helped build that level of performance and level of consistency so we expect a tough battle”.
For this battle, James will not be able to call on his midfield general Aidan McCarthy who remains sidelined with a quad injury. “He’ll be missing for a few weeks, he’s a big loss for us. We’ve picked up injuries in the last couple of weeks, post Cusack Cup and when the county players were coming back. We had a clean bill of health bar Aidan but we picked up some injuries in the last week or so”.
Coupled with their experience heads is an abundance of quality in the likes of Keelan Sexton, Daniel Walsh, Dermot Coughlan which is aided by the battling qualities of the Hickey brothers, Martin McMahon and Daragh Sexton which will see Kilmurry Ibrickane remain in the mix until the concluding stages of the championship to take the crown off Éire Óg.
Kilmurry Ibrickane
Management: James Murrihy (manager), James Mannion (coach), Enda O’Halloran (selector), Diarmuid Whelan (selector), Gary Sexton (selector),
Backroom Team: Aaron Ryan, Peter O’Dwyer, Tom O’Connor, Micheál Talty, Paul Shanahan.
Physio: Michelle Downes, David Byrne
Captain: TBC
Key Player: Keelan Sexton
One to watch: Cathal Talty
Fresh blood: Tomas Sexton, Cathal Talty, Conor Kearney, Tom O’Flaherty.
Departures Gate: N/A
Titles won: 16
Last season’s run: Eliminated in the semi-finals by Ennistymon following a penalty shootout
Schedule:
Round 1 vs St Breckans on August 4th in Cusack Park at 7pm
Round 2 vs Corofin on August 18th/19th/20th
Round 3 vs St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield on September 1st/2nd/3rd
