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*St Joseph’s Miltown manager Martin Guerin with selector Jim Marrinan. Photograph: James Downes
ST JOSEPH’S Miltown face off with reigning intermediate champions Wolfe Tones this Saturday in what they’ve labelled as “a massive game”.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
Originally fixed for Saturday afternoon in Lissycasey, the game has been rescheduled to take place later that evening in Clarecastle.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, St Joseph’s Miltown manager, Martin Guerin outlined that it is a vital game for the West Clare side as is their final group game with St Breckans following a first round loss to Kilmurry Ibrickane. At the beginning of July, it finished 3-21 0-5 when Miltown and Wolfe Tones clashed in the O’Gorman Cup final, a much tighter contest is forecast this weekend.
“Both games have to be won, we’ve a big game against Wolfe Tones, it becomes absolutely massive for us now, we have to dust ourselves off, get a good recovery, stop feeling sorry for ourselves straight away and look ahead to the next game, I think we’re going to improve from this, that was probably the first time that team has played together in two years with that personnel, hopefully we’ll have a few more bodies back from the injury table, we’d a couple of guys away so we’d hope to have a stronger panel for the next day but it is a huge game for us”.
Five points was the margin between Miltown and Kilmurry Ibrickane in the first round, the sides were level 1-7 apiece at half time but the Bricks produced a stronger second half showing to emerge victorious. “We’re disappointed, we gave them a gift of a start to go 1-2 0-0 behind but we clawed our way back and were probably the better team for the last twenty minutes of the first half, we dominated the kickouts. In saying that, we didn’t punish them as much as we should have with the possession we had, we should have gone in five points up at half time but we were level, against Kilmurry Ibrickane you don’t get those opportunities and leave them there, you have to take every chance you get”.
Missed chances in the opening half proved costly for Miltown who dominated the second quarter where they scored five points on the bounce and kept their opponents scoreless for fourteen minutes. “You’d always like to start with the front foot with whatever advantage you can get, particularly against a team that are so good on the ball. We were happy enough at half time to be honest but those missed chances came back to haunt us at the finish because we were forcing shots when we shouldn’t have been”.
Guerin continued, “We couldn’t get our hands on enough of the ball, we didn’t dominate midfield like we did in the first half. There was a lot of breaking ball, sometimes the breaking ball falls for you and other times it doesn’t, today it didn’t fall for us”.
Plans were disrupted for Miltown when centre back Gordon Kelly who had been an injury doubt prior to the game was ruled out in the warm-up with a groin issue. This saw them move one of their main ball-winners Conor Cleary from midfield to centre back. “We’d to move around the team, it was a bit of a blow in fairness because Gordon brings great experience, he is still a very good player, still very important to Miltown so it was a bit of a disruption but we still had plenty of good lads out on the field to match them, unfortunately we didn’t”.
They may not publicly admit it just yet but Miltown would not fear another crack at Kilmurry Ibrickane later on in the championship. “Let’s try and win the next two games first and see what happens then, you never know, championships can take funny directions with the way it is lined up in the group,” Guerin said when questioned on whether they could meet down the line.
