*Dylan O’Brien takes on Sean Browne. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
KILRUSH SHAMROCKS are sixty minutes away from a successive final appearance in the Clare intermediate football championship.
Hitting five goals was key to their quarter-final win over Cooraclare in a tight contest, one that can certainly stand to them as they prepare for a last four showdown with Wolfe Tones, indeed it will be their second year in a row meeting the Shannon side at this stage of the championship.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Kilrush manager Daniel Ryan explained that their focus had been on taking down Cooraclare’s defensive set-up. “It was a good performance, we always said once we heard that draw that Cooraclare were set up very well defensively but we had the players around so we’re happy to get the result. It was hard at times, they kicked some very good scores but we responded with goals at different times which was the killing part because goals win games”.
Their homework paid off as goals from Don O’Driscoll x2, Gearoid O’Brien, Ross Phelan and Ross Cullinan were crucial to their victory. “We’ve watched a lot of the teams and in fairness they were set up very well in the last two or three games that we’ve seen, we had to find a way to beat them down and thankfully we did, we do a lot of work outside of games and training in studying games so I think that is a big thing, we need to play on our terms and find ways to break down teams and thankfully we did today”.
Ryan continued, “We were in trouble in the middle of the field for a while, they tagged on a few scores but goals win games and that was the difference, we got the goals whereas they got one and we need to improve on our point-taking the next day”.
He added, “We have a big squad and the lads that came on made a big difference, Darragh Bolton, Joe Miniter, Tommy Dullaghan and Keith Crowley, we have a good bench and we’ve been working all year on building a panel because you won’t any game with fifteen players, you need nineteen or twenty”.
