*Éire Óg’s panel stand together for a minute’s silence for Bernard O’Brien. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
ÉIRE ÓG senior football manager Shane Daniels dedicated their semi-final win to the O’Briens, a family deeply rooted in the club who are currently experiencing a great sense of loss.
On Friday evening, shock and sadness swept across the town of Ennis and into the heart of Éire Óg when word filtered out regarding the sudden death of Bernard O’Brien, a brother of Darren who is a starting dual-player for both senior sides and a son of Bob, a leading figure within the club who is heavily involved in video analysis with teams.
Prior to Saturday’s 2-10 0-9 semi-final victory over Lissycasey, a minute’s silence was held for Bernard.
Manager Shane Daniels said the O’Briens were at the foremost of their thoughts. “The lads worked really hard, it has been a real tough twenty four hours for the lads, for the club and everyone involved in the team, it was different circumstances to what we are used to but the lads showed great heart and courage. I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Darren and Bob O’Brien, both of them are involved with us for the last number of years, huge Éire Óg men, we had to get over the line for them”.
He told The Clare Echo, “This is only a game, we go out and we love football, we will train as hard as we can, we will analyse it, we will watch it, at the end of the day we all have to go home but what two of our family as we call them are going through at the moment is really tough, for the lads to keep their concentration today and win is super, I can’t speak highly enough of anyone that took to the pitch for us”.
Daniels continued, “Our immediate attention will turn to Darren and Bob O’Brien, we will spend the next few days with them and after that we’ve the hurling final which the club as a whole will be looking forward to and then we’ll look to the football final, we’ll take the games as they come which is what we’ve done all year and it is what we will keep doing”.
Reflecting on the match, Shane stated, “We knew what we were going to get, Lissycasey are a fantastic team, they have shown it all year and have been putting up fantastic scores, they are really pacy, they can score and have guys all over the pitch that can cause you damage, defensively I thought we were good but in attack we can be better, you have to praise Lissycasey who were a really good outfit”.
Although they haven’t been greatly troubled on their run to a fourth county final in five years, he was adamant that Éire Óg still have a lot to work on. “We always have things to work on, every day I go out I say the same thing and it has been our philosophy all year, every day we go back and look at the video, we try work hard on things and improve things, every day we go out we try get better, that is all we can do”.
