Online Club Football Championship coverage brought to you by the Shannon Springs Hotel—home of The Old Lodge Gastropub.
*Eoin Cleary celebrates scoring St Joseph Miltown’s second goal in the Clare SFC quarter-final. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
HARD YARDS were clocked up in the earlier in the year for St Joseph’s Miltown to serve as “money in the bank” with extra time in their quarter-final win over Ennistymon serving as “withdrawal time”.
Cusack Cup finalists Miltown are preparing for a first semi-final since 2023 where they will face county champions Éire Óg on Sunday (13:00) in Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg.
Across sixty minutes, Miltown and Ennistymon were tied on four occasions but it was Seán O’Brien’s side that got over the line in extra time with a 3-18 1-17 victory.
Speaking to The Clare Echo following their win, O’Brien admitted, “it’s pure happiness, it was different twenty minutes ago when we were three points down in injury time but we worked a really good two pointer and got the momentum to get level, we didn’t win too many breaks but we won one when it really counted, when we got the free it was game on for extra time and I felt we had loads of momentum going into extra time, we carried it through to the first half of it”.
When Eoin Cleary forced extra time when converting a free on sixty three minutes, O’Brien did a small understated fist pump to himself, a sign that he knew the game was theirs to lose. “We did talk during the week that everything was a possibility, we felt the lads had an awful lot of work done this year, we have legs everywhere and I felt we would be able to do well in extra time, that is what all the work from earlier in the year was money in the bank and this was withdrawal time”.
Ennistymon had the breeze in the first half but wayward shooting meant they only led by two points at the interval. “The breeze died down, you could see it in the second half of extra time it was nearly like a summer’s day, we can kick them against the breeze too, we have some great two point kickers but it die down, that is life and stuff like that happens”.
Goals arrived at key junctures for Miltown, Seanie Malone dispatched a penalty to the net on fourteen minutes, Eoin Cleary had their second goal in their first attack of the second half while Oisin Looney sealed the win when firing home on seventy four minutes. “You have to make your own luck, Oisin getting into a great position for the ball to break to him and to be there to pounce on it and stick the goal, it was super, the margins are so fine and if a fella is bursting his gut to get in on a break or a ball around the square makes such a difference”.
Within their dressing room are some of O’Brien’s former teammates who have three county medals to their name, they also have young footballers preparing for a first-ever Clare SFC semi-final. “Our youngest lad is Conor Neylon who only turned eighteen, it is funny he is only eighteen but we felt we just had to get him on the field, he is not really a wing back but we weren’t getting many breaks but we said we’d get him on wing back, he has played there earlier in the year for another game we were chasing, he was the one to start winning a few breaks, he made good decisions, he is an old head on young shoulders and then he has lads like Conor Cleary around him who are savage, Darragh McDonagh stepped up big time, the lads who have been there and done it were with him, it was a lovely blend”.
Loss of breaking balls in the opening half stood out as a main area they need to rectify before meeting Éire Óg for the second time. “We did lose a lot of breaks in the first half which we wouldn’t be happy with, we just needed Conor Neylon on the field, we saw it an earlier game this year that if we could get him on the field that good things would happen, regardless of his age we trusted him to go in because he has been great all year, he stepped up big time”.
Making a first semi-final in three years brought a sense of delight for the assistant principal and Irish teacher at St Joseph’s secondary school in Spanish Point. “We’re delighted with that, that is why you are involved, we wanted to be back training next week, we wanted to be together as a group for another stint, we’ve done that and earned ourselves two more weeks anyway, we’ll see how we go”.
