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*Martin McMahon goes to ground following a foul by Mark McInerney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
Éire Óg’s Mark McInerney is hopeful of following in the footsteps of his father by collecting multiple senior football championships.
McInerney collected his first senior medal on Sunday as Éire Óg recorded a 1-11 0-09 win over Kilmurry Ibrickane. At half-time, the Doonbeg team of 1996 were honoured with Mark’s father Francis, captain of the Munster championship winning side of 1992 among them.
Both events added to the occasion for the McInerney clan with Mark observing that his father was showing what the win meant a bit more visibily. “He is more emotional than me, I saw him there with tears in his eyes, he has seven county titles so I’ve a bit of catching up but to get one is amazing, if I finish up in however many years and I only have one I’ll be delighted”.
Given the age-profile of their team, eight of the starting team were under the age of twenty five, Mark was hopeful that this would be more than a flash in the pan. At twenty years old, he was the youngest member of a full-forward line which also included Gavin Cooney (22) and Philip Talty (21).
“If we can build on this for the next ten years or so and keep everyone together hopefully we could make a Doonbeg-esque dynasty or something like that, it is probably wishful thinking but we’ve a serious team with a mixture of leadership, youth, athleticism and the lads at the back are unbelievable”.
Marking these “unbelievable” defenders in training “has made us all better forwards,” he maintained. “Ronan Lanigan and Manus Doherty are unbelievable corner backs, Aaron Fitz is unbelievable at full-back, every day at training we’re made better, it’s possibly the best training you can get in the county when you’re marking defenders of that calibre three times a week in training, it has improved us all”.
A major turning point if not the most important moment in the match was when the former Clare minor and U20 footballer palmed the ball to the back of the net after an outstanding run by Éinne O’Connor. The green flag on seventeen minutes saw Éire Óg’s lead grow from one to four points which gave them a platform from which Kilmurry Ibrickane would never catch them. “Everyone played a key role, we all ran ourselves into the ground, I was lucky enough to get the goal but Éinne put it on a plate for me, all I had to do was tap it in, everyone put in a savage effort the whole year, we knew we had to give it everything and thankfully we got a good result out of it”.
Their success has been aided by a newfound buzz in the club, Mark outlined. “Paul Madden has been immense with us for the past four years, he’s laid the foundations and James Hanrahan before him, Seanie Buckley brought in a real freshness as coach this year to the training sessions, everyone refocused and there was more commitment from the lads, the hurlers doing so well gave us a massive buzz, with all the wins it was giving each team and the club a buzz which helped to make it different”.
