*Clooney/Quin captain Jimmy Corry. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLOONEY/QUIN showed a mental strength that had been lacking to snatch a victory in the first round of the TUS Clare SHC which leaves them sixty minutes from securing a quarter-final berth.
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Substitute Darragh McNamara’s goal on sixty minutes propelled Clooney/Quin to a 1-18 2-12 first round win over Broadford and also marked them taking the lead for the first time in over thirty minutes. They face Inagh/Kilnamona on Sunday at 15:00.
Strong finishes have been evident in their displays all year, manager Fergal Lynch noted. “It was always going to be a battle. We were under no illusions as to what we were facing in Broadford so in a battle, it doesn’t matter whether you win by one or 21 as long as you come out on top. It came down to the last few minutes but we knew from our challenges games and Clare Cup games that we were finishing strong so we were patient and finally got over the line”.
He praised the impact of sports psychologist Kieran Shannon. “Clooney had been on the wrong end of these types of battles previously and we’ve done a lot of work with Kieran Shannon on how to deal with situations like this and thankfully it paid off today but it’s only one game and only one step in the ladder so the next day is another day out”.
All-Ireland winner Lynch highlighted how their young players stepped up to the mantle of senior championship. “We’ve new players that really stood up today. Darragh [McNamara] has been battling injury but came on and got the goal. Darragh and Sean have been excellent and had really good minor campaigns last year while Jerry O’Connor has been a revelation for us so our strength-in-depth is improving all the time”.
He told The Clare Echo, “Our big boys were well marked today but still led by example. We told Ryan Taylor to stick with it as much as he could. Paddy Donnellan is no easy feat to mark, he’s a really good man-marker so we had to move him inside to get a bit more space. He had one shot off that went wide but the second one went over and put us within two of them so putting him inside there actually caused a little bit of trouble for Broadford.
“Peter [Duggan] was phenomenal again today. I mean for a guy that has taken so much punishment in his hurling career, he still comes looking for more every day. We have so many leaders through the field in his brother Martin, John Conneally and John Cahill so this is a big result but we’ve Inagh-Kilnamona next so we need to park this fast and move on to try and get a result there”.
Meanwhile, Broadford manager Paddy Meehan was dejected with the result. “I find the result so hard to take because we fought so hard and were in the game right till the end. We brought real battling qualities to the match today because that was what we needed to bring to try and win the game so to come up short is hard to take really”.
He added, “We gave everything but credit Clooney-Quin too. They have a lot of good young players, not just who wear the county senior jersey but Under 20 and minor too over the past few years. So that’s the standard we need to get up to as while Clooney have been winning Minor A titles, we’re competing at Minor B so we need to get up to that level consistently.
“Look, I’m fierce proud of the players, their battling qualities were above what I expected but they gave everything and I couldn’t have asked for more. Look, we just came up short and to lose Donie Whelan to injury last night was a huge loss. We can’t afford to lose quality forwards like him. We can’t dwell on it now though. We’ve Corofin next and Inagh-Kilnamona after that so it’s not going to be easy. So we’ve just got to dust ourselves down and put our full focus on Corofin,” the Sixmilebridge native concluded.
