*Éire Óg’s Mark McInerney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
A PERSONAL best of 0-16 in one game from Mark McInerney has Éire Óg preparing for a fourth Munster SFC club semi-final in five years.
McInerney was in sparkling form and by far the best player on the field of Cusack Park for Shane Daniels’ side as they overcame Waterford champions Rathgormack 0-20 1-13.
Off his left and right boot, Mark was splitting the posts from all angles and even kicked four two pointers, two from play and two from frees. “It was good, thank God they were going over for me, some days that doesn’t happen so I’m just delighted to get over the line,” he said of his personal tally.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Mark noted it was the most amount of scores he kicked in the one game, “the two pointers help with that, it’s good”. His father Francis, Clare’s Munster SFC winning captain of 1992 and a seven-time Clare SFC winner with Doonbeg admitted he hadn’t hit the 0-16 mark in his own storied career in one game but rather two combined.
In Sunday’s quarter-final, they only trailed Rathgormack twice over the hour but Townies supporters were certainly nervous throughout the contest. “It was a savage battle, we knew to expect it too. Rathgormack came out in the second half and got off to a flyer, we just couldn’t handle them at that stage, I thought we played very well in the first half and again same as the county final we left two goals behind us but we dominated kickouts, that flipped around in the third quarter when they got off to a flyer but we settled down and thank God we got over the line”.
Calm heads emerged when they needed them with Éire Óg outscoring their opponents 0-7 0-2 in the final quarter. “That’s what we’ve really focused on, the last two games and again in the final, when the game is in the melting pot we start playing our best football so we’re just delighted with that”.
Without a competitive game in four weeks since their county final victory over St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield, the PhD student acknowledged there were positives and negatives to a month’s gap between games. “We’re used to long breaks, we’re training all the time for the whole year, we had a few challenge matches so we were ready for that, four weeks is nice to get a break but there are pros and cons to both, sometimes you’d like to be playing week on week but it’s good to get over the line”.
