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*Lissycasey’s Diarmuid McMahon Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
LISSYCASEY are set to welcome back Clare forward Aaron Griffin as they bid to put their championship back on track and attempt to secure a quarter-final spot.
Expectation on the Cusack Cup champions has been dampened following the manner of their second half collapse when falling to a 1-16 0-12 second round loss to Kilmurry Ibrickane.
They head West to Miltown Malbay on Sunday (13:00), in need of a win to guarantee direct advancement to the quarter-finals. A draw would also suffice provided Kilmurry Ibrickane overcome Corofin whereas a loss, depending on the margin puts them at risk of ending up in a the preliminary quarter-final if not a relegation battle.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Lissycasey manager, David Considine said they are treating Sunday’s tie as if their championship is dependent on it. “It is a knockout game for us really and an extension of a quarter-final, if we lose we’re under our fair pressure, we’d be treating it as a must-win game against a team that we’ve always had great battles with including the quarter-final last year, that was a tight game and there was nothing in it until we got a goal very late on to give us a five or six point cushion.
“We’ll expect nothing simple. From the minute the draw was made, we knew it was a tough group, any of the four teams would do well to get out of it and at the moment it is showing up to be that way, we will have a tough game in Miltown against St Breckans”.
Clare forward, Aaron Griffin is anticipated to feature for Lissycasey for the first time this year on Sunday. He entered the fray from the bench for Ballyea’s senior hurlers in their final outing of 2026 when overcoming St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield in Newmarket-on-Fergus on Saturday. “Aaron has been back doing a bit with us for the last few weeks, we’ll see but he is probably a bit away yet, we’d love to have him back but we won’t rush him back if he is not right, there’s no point. Why risk bringing him back too early if it will set him back again and we don’t want to do that”.
Ahead 0-10 0-6 at half time against Kilmurry Ibrickane, Lissycasey should have been further in front but were outscored 1-10 0-2 in the second half to suffer their first defeat since May in the Cusack Cup. Ironically the last team to overcome them in a competitive fixture was Sunday’s opponents, St Breckans.
Reflecting on the Bricks defeat, Considine stated, “We had the breeze in the first half and we possibly didn’t make enough of it, I felt Kilmurry Ibrickane were the better team throughout, we got a couple of two pointers off in the first half to keep our noses in front but from a performance point of view the first half wasn’t something you would be earmarking as something that was impressive by any stretch of the imagination. In the second half, Kilmurry Ibrickane completely took over and we had no answers for them”.
Though they led by four at the interval, it was six scores apiece, a brace of two pointers from Daire Culligan and one from Ben Skeritt putting a slightly skewered reflection on the scoreboard. “:We had other chances in the first half where we didn’t get shots off which was more disappointing, we messed around with the ball close to the goals and lads overplayed the ball a little bit, there is lots of the first half that was positive but as a whole the whole performance was quiet disappointing”.
Both championship outings have seen Lissycasey lose their way when coming out second best on breaking ball from their kickouts. “Kilmurry Ibrickane are an impressive outfit, when you let them have primary possession they will punish you, at stages we defended quite well, it was an onslaught in the second half, we’re lucky that the scoreline finished the way it did, they were full value for that lead and a bit more”.
