*Michelle Caulfield will be hoping to win a first senior championship this weekend. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
It won’t surprise anyone that Truagh/Clonlara have retained the same management that led them to their first Clare senior camogie championship final last year.
Manager Bob Caulfield is again joined by Eamonn Noonan, John Conlon, Ryan Morris, Cathy Hally and Cian Foley.
“We were in a very tough group and we just took it one game at a time. Our approach was that we were playing a final every day”, manager Caulfield outlined.
“The training has gone very well. At the beginning of the year we were very slack with players with many gone away travelling but gradually they all came back and everything fell into place and we were just lucky to get out of our group”, Bob told The Clare Echo.
Selector Eamonn Noonan accepts that their final opponents Scariff/Ogonnelloe “are a serious outfit, very very talented all over the pitch. They were better than us last year and we have to see how we shape up this year. We know its going to be a massive test. We know they are excellent. Only Oulart the Ballagh beat them last year and Oulart were All-Ireland champions at the time. We have nothing to lose. Not many give us a chance but we will give it a go and see how we get on”.
He added, “this was a tough championship, the group was very strong. The girls performed very well throughout and we took it just one game at a time. We just looked at the next game and that has worked for us so far”.
Manager Bob is happy that “we have a clean bill of health heading into the final. We gained a few players this year with a few minors coming into the squad and they are going well too. The training has been going well and the extra few girls have made a huge difference”.
Qualifying for the minor and junior finals is a positive, Noonan added. “Everyone is coming together and all are performing to a very high standard and you have got to give credit to all the people who train those underage teams and transfer the love of the game to them at that young age whether in the club or the school. There is a great crop of young players coming through. We see that and its great. When things are going well its easier to get people to come to training and if there are more there it drives the competitiveness. The younger kids who are seven, eight, nine and ten years of age all want to be like the senior girls now and the club will just have to capitalise on that”.
“It’s great for camogie to have this game in Cusack Park. The standard of camogie in Clare has risen in the last few years. Every team has a brilliant management team now. We have a good few on the county panel. If we could win for the parish it would be brilliant. We are not looking at anything now but this final”, manager Bob concluded.
