*Jennifer Daly with Katie Gallagher. Photograph: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
SCARIFF/OGONNELLOE may have exited the All-Ireland club championship but their manager David Sullivan remained steadfast in his determination that the East Clare side would one day claim national honours.
Reigning All-Ireland club senior camogie champions, Oulart the Ballagh proved much too strong for Scariff/Ogonnelloe on Sunday, the Wexford champions recording a comprehensive eighteen point victory.
Ultimately Scariff/Ogonnelloe’s inability to register a score from play and to match the physicality of their Leinster counterparts was influential to the outcome while the absence of key defender Ciara Doyle through injury and a setback sustained by forward Aoife Power on her road to recovery from an ACL injury along with unavailability of the experienced Marian Rodgers for this outing were players of a calibre they could not afford to be without.
Defeats like this will stand to the East Clare side, manager David Sullivan maintained. “If we want to be All-Ireland champions then these are the teams we have to beat, we have to learn through the process today. As difficult and all as it is to look at the scoreboard, the day we do walk up the Hogan Stand and do become victorious in an All-Ireland club championship, days like this will drive us on, we were asking girls to play in conditions like this, the likes of Ursula Jacob, Una Leacy, Shelley and Stacy Kehoe have something like twenty All-Irelands between them, we’re asking sixteen and seventeen year olds to go out and be better than them.
“It is one bridge too far but I have to commend the girls as always, we never gave up, there was two girls there at the start of the second half, we could have fell to pieces and it could have been seven or eight goals but the girls got the two scores at the end to put a bit of respectability on the scoreboard, I couldn’t be more proud of their efforts and endeavour all the way through the game. As great and all as it is to win, you probably find out more about yourself on days like today, if we want to go further as a club this is where we have to get to, it’s a harsh lesson but it’s a lesson we will have to learn and come back stronger from it”.
Speaking on Scariff Bay Community Radio, Lorrha native Sullivan felt they were written off by many people in Clare at the beginning of their 2021 campaign. “In the first round of the championship we were the third or fourth best team in Clare according to a lot of people, we had some marvellous days out this year, the Munster final and county final replay in Broadford those memories will stay with us for the rest of our lives, today is a harsh lesson and it is tough to take because we fully believed coming down here today that we could do it, we weren’t here to make up the numbers because we put fourteen months of solid effort into this but today we met a rock that we couldn’t move”.
He was adamant Scariff/Ogonnelloe would one day become All-Ireland champions. “You could see the difference in their physicality and how they moved the ball against the wind, only three or four people on the group used today were over twenty four, the rest are only children still learning their game and having to develop physically, it won’t be always bad days when we get to this stage, I know we’ve lost twice at this stage but we will make the breakthrough but it is about perseverance and keeping the girls together, just getting them older, wiser and stronger as the years go on, we will eventually make our way up the steps of the Hogan Stand, I’ve no doubt about it”.
A break of “a few weeks” is on the cards for now but he quickly pointed out that retaining the McMahon Cup is the sole objective for 2022. “We have to go back and defend Clare again which is hugely important for the club. We don’t want to win one Clare like we did in 2019 and fade away in 2020 to come back in 2021, if we want to be here on a regular basis and make that step then we have to make sure we take care of our own business in our county first, that is our next aim, we’ll be back in a few weeks time but we deserve a good break because there has been a long process”.
Sullivan continued, “Our goal is to bring on other young girls in the club, get Aoife Power, Ciara Doyle and Marian Rodgers back playing and get physically stronger, this won’t derail us, we were in bonus territory today, I tried as much as I could to say that in the lead up to today’s game but there’s eleven All-Ireland final appearances between the other three teams, we’ve yet to make one, it was always going to be a struggle no matter who we played but I’m so proud of the girls”.
