*Tulla players celebrate. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
TULLA were not short of motivation after they claimed the Clare intermediate camogie championship following final heartache in the past two seasons.
Speaking shortly after their 1-15 0-15 win over Broadford/Bodyke, Ray Stewart said, “there was no difficulty motivating the girls after the losses suffered in the previous two finals”.
He recounted, “we started back in February and we had a core crew there of ten, twelve, thirteen girls and I could see the grit in them that they wanted to go again. We kind of made a pact that we would aim to go the year unbeaten and we have done that, we won the league and championship, lost no game, a massive thing for a small group of players”.
Ray said, “you learn from your losses and your mistakes and I think we learned from all that. Today was a savage battle and thank God we came out on the right side. I have only been involved three years and the standard is high, any of the teams can win the title, it’s so competitive. Every team is a good team and we have respect for all team”.
When asked what is next for this group he said “ three years ago Clarecastle/Ballyea beat us in a replay and we still had to go and represent the county in Munster. We had a very hard game against Adare who went on to win the Munster championship. We said after that game that the next time we would play in Munster we would be doing it as champions. The girls have goals and targets. We will be playing the Waterford champions and I think we have a home game. It would be great to be competitive in Munster”.
Concluding he said, “We are up senior now and we will want to be competitive. They are well able to stay competitive. There are three top teams at senior at presents and all others are at the same level and I put us into that group”.
