*Photograph: Mike Brennan
WOLFE TONES’ double success at intermediate level sees the Shannon club become one of four senior dual clubs in the county for 2025.
They join Cratloe, Éire Óg and St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield in the top tier of both competitions.
Manager of the intermediate winning football side, Johnny Bridges said it was “an absolutely unbelievable feeling” to manage his club to glory, ten years after winning a Clare IFC medal as a player.
He said, “We started well and got the goal, the first two goals of the game were lucky in a way, we tacked on a few points and got another goal but they came at us again but that is typical Naomh Eoin because they are warriors, they battle hard to the end, we came out at half time and we saw a monsoon, the wind changed direction twice which made it really difficult for both teams, we dug deep, we sat too deep at times but we didn’t concede the goal which they were going for, we came out on top and our subs made a great difference coming on and we freshened it up, I’m so proud of the boys”.
By half time, Wolfe Tones had eight different scores, double that of Naomh Eoin. “We’ve lads that are able to tack on scores and take scores when we need them to, there’s goal scorers in the team like Jack Ryan today he has got four vital goals for us all year and he got a goal against Naomh Eoin in the league final too, we backed Jack to go in and get another one for us. If I remember correctly ten years ago back in Miltown, Aaron Brennan snuffed a chance and today he sticks one top corner, a lucky enough goal but we are delighted because we don’t care what way they go in, we probably should have got another goal at the end and maybe Dean saw the headlines like the hurling last week, I’m delighted for Dean because he’s had a tough year personally, he is a double champion two weeks in a row and he deserves this, there’s not many lads to have done that and to have been captain, the lads love him to bits, it’s been so great for him and his sister, an ending to a sad year”.
Naomh Eoin dominated possession in the second half but had eight missed chances in a row. “Someone said to me I was very calm, the lead we had at half time and the chances we had missed I knew the lads would hang tough because we’ve done it a few games this year, it’s not that we sit back too deep and play negative football but we’ve lads that are willing to put their shoulder on the line and take hits, the weather didn’t help in the second half but the lads that came on, the two Fitzgeralds ran at them, Chippy ran at them and Joe McGauley reeled back the years to dug deep and find whatever energy he could to carry the ball, it was hard in the last fifteen or twenty minutes, it was an intense game but that it was Naomh Eoin bring because they are warriors”.
