*Tom Kavanagh and David Reidy celebrate. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
QUALIFYING for the Munster club hurling final has left Éire Óg in “dreamland” according to manager Gerry O’Connor.
An extra time victory on Sunday over Loughmore-Castleiney has sent Éire Óg who last month won the Clare SHC for the first time since 1990, into a first Munster final in thirty five years.
It’s been an enjoyable run for all involved, thus far, manager Gerry O’Connor admitted. “It is dreamland stuff, we enjoy doing what we’re doing for the past year and we’ll knock another two weeks out of it”.
With the final score of 2-20 1-16 visible in the background as O’Connor gave his reflections on the encounter, he was adamant that the final margin didn’t tell the whole story. “The scoreline didn’t reflect how tight that game was, it was a one or two point game either way, the conditions and winter hurling turned it into an absolute dogfight, the desire and physicality of both teams was frightening in intensity to watch from the sideline.
“We’re incredibly proud of our all players but our young players yet again, we’ve been talking about building a panel but we seem to get better and get more energy as the game went on, we’re just thrilled, we set out here today to come out and do a job, we had targeted as I had spoke all week, we targeted breaking ball and winning the fifty fifty duels but I can’t believe how well we played in the last twenty minutes, the energy and desire we brought was savage”.
Extra time saw Éire Óg hit their stride, they finished with 1-4 without reply to seal the win, Darren Moroney bagging the major while in extra time overall they outscored the Tipperary champions 1-7 0-3.
Key to the Ennis side taking charge was the manner in which they developed their running game, this also led to David Reidy assisting Moroney for the green flag. “We got our running game going, we were able to escape their clutches, they are a phenomenally difficult team to play against, you have to see up it close to see how good they are in the air, Noel McGrath and John McGrath caught ball in front of us but once we were able to get our running game going and put the ball out wide, it was very difficult to get ball into Marco (Cleary) and Danny (Russell)”.
Russell was their chief scorer over the hour, hitting an impressive 1-14. “Nobody has any idea what Danny has done for this team over the last two years in particular, he has been an incredible leader, he talks when has to talk but he does most of his talking through his hurling,” O’Connor outlined.
Managing the gap of six weeks from their Clare SHC final win over Clooney/Quin worked out well for O’Connor and his management which also includes John Russell, Ronan Keane and Liam Cronin. “The six week gap was a blessing in disguise, we took two weeks off, it coincided with us getting out to the schools and the Academy closing for the winter, we were able to relax and meet people that we needed to meet with that Cup over that two week period, then we went back to work for the last two weeks, we’ve been incredibly lucky that we’ve been able to get pitches, Gurteen with Joe McNamara, Niall Tuohy in Clarecastle, Caherlohan Deirdre Murphy, Kieran Keating and Michelle Moroney have been incredible, the amount of people that have gone out of their way and the goodwill to give us pitches to train on over the past four weeks has been incredible, we have to acknowledge”.
Initial preparations had them focused on welcoming their opponents to Cusack Park in the county town but a burst watermain in Francis Street led to the fixture getting moved to O’Garney Park in Sixmilebridge which was not ideal for both sides but particularly the visitors, the ex Clare joint manager felt. “I’d say it was a bigger hiccup for Loughmore-Castleiney because they had to kill time on the bus, we just heard fifteen minutes before we met and it was easier for us, we just sent lads home for an hour, we dropped an hour off the schedule and in fairness it probably discommoded Loughmore much more than us”.
