*Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
DEMANDING A PERFORMANCE fitting of championship was one of the goals for Ciaran Russell heading into last Sunday’s quarter-final with Cork.
On reflection, the wing back certainly delivered that with a fine individual display and strengthened the arguments from his Éire Óg manager Paul Madden that Russell is one of the top defenders in the province at present.
From the off, the Ennis man could sense a different atmosphere in Cusack Park. “It’s championship, there was a different feel coming out here today, we had great support, every score we got I think the crowd brought us on. It went right to the end, it could have been a draw there but the one thing we said coming out today was that whatever happened we were going to give it a go to try win the game, right till the final kick of the game we did that and got the result”.
His contribution to Cillian Rouine’s winning score was pivotal. The two-time Clare SFC winner took the ball from Stephen Ryan and produced a lung-busting run, giving a quick offload to Jamie Malone who found the Lahinch defender to claim the spoils for Colm Collins’ men.
Russell was quick to downplay his supreme run, “I think everyone has to do that, everyone has to do that, it’s the type of game we play now, I’m just glad I was able to find one last run at the end”.
Defensively Clare did curb Cork’s key threats but coughed up five scoreable opportunities in the opening half due to poor tackling, addressing this was a focus at half-time, he said. “It was definitely an area, I think they got four of their six points in the opening half from frees, we identified that at half-time, a small bit of tidying up. I think our defence was excellent all day, I think we conceded too many from play, we tidied up in the second half and it showed, when you’re giving away easy scores they are going to score them, we tightened up at half-time, I think the defence was excellent throughout”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Ciaran outlined that his approach to the game was on delivering rather than assessing permutations such as a defeat seeing them end up in the Tailteann Cup. “For the last couple of weeks our focus has been on getting to this game, putting in a performance, we knew if we performed as we can that we would get a result, we didn’t look into it too much, it was another game, a Munster championship game, one we were looking forward to and that we knew if we turned in a performance that we could get the result, we turned in quite a good performance”.
Absorbing the adrenaline on the final whistle and euphoria sweeping through from supporters that managed to get their way onto the field of Cusack Park will drive him and his teammates on when they face Limerick in the provincial semi-finals. “That’s what’s all about, hopefully the fans stick with us for the next day. We’ve a trip coming to Limerick, we played them a couple of weeks ago, we’ll enjoy this now and come tomorrow we’ll focus on Limerick and a big push”.
