*Fred Hegarty. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CRITICISM over their first round loss to Scariff left a sense of hurt within the Inagh/Kilnamona senior hurling squad and management.
Defeated by Scariff in the group stages of the Clare SHC for the second year in a row, Inamona bounced back superbly to demolish O’Callaghans Mills 2-19 0-9 in the second round. It sets up a do or die final round clash with Broadford on Sunday (1pm) in Cusack Park where they can only progress if they record a win, a result that would knock out Broadford if Scariff beat The Mills.
Aidan McCarthy is expected to miss out on the game, the Clare hurler has yet to feature in either code of the club championship due to a quad injury which it is understood he aggravated further. The Clare Cup finalists appear to be coming closer to finding their best fifteen as evidenced by the side which lined out in round two.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Inamona manager Tomás Kelly stressed the importance of their second round statement. “We needed to get a reaction from the first day out, we were very disappointed as a group, we knew the first day wasn’t a fair reflection of everyone, we wanted a reaction, it was how we were going to recover from the first day and we showed our true selves, we need to show that every day, we got off to a great start and we targeted that, we were lucky winning the toss and we played well with the wind, we were delighted to get back on the road”.
Following their 0-24 0-20 loss to Scariff, the criticism levelled in Inamona’s direction was high and their status as potential contenders was certainly questioned. “I won’t lie it was a difficult two weeks, it was difficult but it is easy to carry on with things when everything is going well, a true reflection of people is when you are under the pump and when everyone is criticising you, we knew we weren’t bad lads and a bad team overnight, we had to react, we had a good bit of soul searching to do and it was so pleasing to get such a good collective performance”.
What sufficed against The Mills will not be enough to beat Broadford who can advance if they get a draw, the secondary school teacher said. “This won’t count for much the next day against Broadford, I saw them against Scariff and they were outstanding for forty minutes, they were just caught at the post but some of the hurling they played was outstanding, they are one of the form teams of the championship, we’ll have to step it up again to be able to beat them”.
