*Eoin O’Brien with his daughter Elin. Photograph: Joe Buckley
NEWMARKET CELTIC’s twentieth Clare Cup title marked Eoin O’Brien’s first success in his debut season as manager of his native club.
Celtic recorded a 1-0 win over Tulla Utd to claim the Cup for a record twentieth time, a success described by O’Brien as “very satisfying”.
Finishing on a high will aid their preparations for next season, he outlined. “It’s a great reward for ten or eleven months of work. Being the last game, this is almost how you remember the entire season and it sets the tone for next season for players and coaches so winning this makes the off season a little bit easier as you have something tangible to show for all your efforts. Look, every other team has probably trained as hard and put in as many nights but it’s just easier to go back in with a pot on the board and something to show for your efforts”.
O’Brien felt they were lucky not to fall behind. “Conditions were awful but in terms of the game itself, it was probably a similar representation of our entire season in that when we were good we were very good but our first ten or fifteen minutes wouldn’t normally be good enough to win any cup final. We were very lucky not to go one down but in fairness we responded very well and created some really good chances after that and I think we were probably the better team in the second half which maybe coincided with the sun coming out because it was a really strange evening. So It was a good representation of our season overall but we’ll take it”.
Eoin Hayes got the decisive goal for Newmarket, he made an impact off the bench but had a minimal involvement in the build-up to the final after picking up an injury in the league versus Shannon Town. “He was probably our utility man and understood his role really well and it was really satisfying for us as a management group that the substitutes combined for the goal which is testament to the mentality of the two lads. Put in the same situation, other lads may have had a bit of a sulk or shown that they were not happy but that’s not what you get from players in our squad. It’s no coincidence that Hayzo is still able to keep going to such high standards considering the amount of miles that he has clocked up. Even playing hurling as well, people don’t understand the toll that has mentally and physically and to get yourself right and be there at the big moments, it’s no coincidence that he’s able to do that”.
For eight members of their starting team it was a first Clare Cup title, namely Harvey Cullinan, Cathal Cullinan, Antony Dabrynets, Jack Kelly, Conor McDaid, Tadhg Noonan, Dean Hegarty and Nathan Boaventura.
Manager O’Brien is hopeful they will continue to build on the success. “Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gone through a lot of disappointing days as well but a key message that we’d try to give to the younger lads is that you just have to keep coming back. It’s a point that I also made to Tulla in the dressing room afterwards, you have to experience the final defeats, and we had those particularly in the Munster Junior Cup Final of 2016 and a lot of tough days on the hurling field in 2009, ’10 and ’11. I think people kind of forget that when looking back and saying ‘oh you won this and your won that’. I can actually pinpoint the dates and years that we lost big games and finals too just as much as the wins”.
Winning silverware is the standard expected in Newmarket Celtic, he said. “That’s the standard and in some ways if you’re going into a group or a club were the league and cup are your goals every season and it’s written up on the way or decided by players, that’s kind of your job done for you as everyone has to come up to that standard. Whereas if you say ‘ah look we’re in transition and won’t be going for the title this year’, that just gives players and coaches and everyone in the set-up an out and therefore your season can rapidly deteriorate in those awful months of November, December and January where the tougher games come. Everyone is interested and ready to go in March, April and May when the finishing line is in sight and lads are like Lazerus recovering from injury. But I always refer back to those winter months, even in my own playing days in that it’s a huge opportunity to get a block of training done or get your gym done. And obviously you also go and have your Christmas and your celebrations and that but we would have also always trained really hard over Christmas and it was no different this year to try and get ahead of teams.
“And our response from the first week in January until the middle of April when we won 13 matches out of 15, that was definitely the turning point of our season. So I’d attribute a good crisp Christmas block of training to this success today for sure”.
