*Kilmurry Ibrickane’s Dermot Coughlan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
KILMURRY IBRICKANE are to be without star forward, Dermot Coughlan for their semi-final tie with Cratloe in the TUS Clare senior football championship.
Coughlan sustained a fractured foot in Saturday’s eleven point quarter-final win over St Joseph’s Miltown where he was forced off with twenty one minutes played.
Before Kilmurry Ibrickane became aware of their semi-final opponents they knew would be without the services of the Clare forward.
It was initially feared that Martin McMahon was also going to be an absentee, he appeared to dislocate his shoulder in the closing moments of the quarter-final but the injury is understood to not be as serious as first feared.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Kilmurry Ibrickane manager, David Egan confirmed Coughlan was “gone” for their next outing. “You can dwell on it all you want from here on in, it is one out one in. We were bringing on good lads around the forty/forty five minute mark, there is going to be competition for places in the next two weeks which is going to drive standards and our training. It is unfortunate for the guys who have picked up the knocks, we will do everything humanly possible to get them back, hopefully they might see some grass before the year is out”.
Beating Miltown by eleven points was never expected by Kilmurry Ibrickane, he outlined. “We talked all week about the dogfight coming down the last ten minutes and let’s be in it, we got a penalty after the brink of half time which we scored, we were six or seven up at that stage, we had a plan early days that we were going to be bringing on subs around the forty or forty five minute mark, it coincided with the penalty so we were bringing on fresh bodies and had just put a penalty in the net so it really put the nail in the coffin at that stage”.
He maintained their victory was due to “sheer absolute workrate and playing to a system that everyone is comfortable with, football is not that complicated of a game and it is that simple”. He continued, “Today gives us something which I felt we lacked all year which is a bit of belief, if we can channel into that belief and focus on ourselves, we don’t have to be too worried for the next week about who we get or what we get in the draw, between now and next Sunday we’ll concentrate on ourselves and then whoever we get we’ll do a bit of analysis on them from that moment on”.
From the bench, the sixteen time champions were able to spring on Caoilfhinn O’Dea, Joe Campbell, Cathal Talty, Aidan McCarthy and Ciaran Morrissey as they hit full-strength for the first time in this year’s campaign. “Since our last group game we’ve nearly had a full panel in training, obviously Aidan has been playing a bit of hurling with Inagh/Kilnamona, he is back in the frame which is brilliant, the last week gone we had thirty lads in training and thirty lads fit, we’ll have more lads with knocks now and we’ll try look after them to try get as close back to the thirty mark and drive on from Friday night. We can’t dwell on the injuries, we have to let one lad in and one lad out, that is the way good panels have to operate and we have that,” Egan added.
Their cause has also been boosted by the addition of Evan Talty as coach, the move to bring in the two-time Munster club winner was made during the month long-break since their last championship outing. “We had a big gap but we got a good bounce. Evan Talty was with the Roscommon U20s and we decided to bring Evan in with us, he brought a good bounce and a bit of freshness because lads were probably sick of listening to me, it brought a bit of freshness to it, when you bring freshness like that and try something different the time doesn’t be long flying by, we had some good challenge matches in between to get us up to the level for Miltown today, the last four weeks were much better in terms of preparation than the group stages, I’m being told these lads are well used to getting to quarter-finals and not to be panicking or rushing, we were an eight out of ten today whereas we had been six out of ten in the group stages”.
