*Lissycasey goalkeeper, Thomas Collins. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
FOLLOWING a facile opening round win, it won’t be until this weekend that a clearer picture of Lissycasey’s capabilities will be known.
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For the second year in a row, Lissycasey started off their TUS Clare SFC with a comprehensive first round win over Kilmihil.
It finished 0-21 0-6 in their favour with Daire Culligan, Connor Meaney and Aaron Griffin all kicking two pointers for Aiden ‘Horse’ Moloney’s side. “The number one priority was always to get a result and put this one to bed, we were hot favourites to win, I thought our lads had a decent attitude, they came out and worked hard, there is still a lot to work on and we left a lot of scores out there even though we scored 0-21 but I felt Kilmihil set up very defensively and didn’t get us the goal opportunities we’d hope to have with that amount of possession,” the manager outlined.
With ten wides over the hour, he was adamant such inefficiency would cost them on a bigger day. “There’s a lot to work on, I wasn’t overly impressed with a lot of our team performance as such, individually we did better at times but I didn’t think we clicked at all up front but as I said Kilmihil played very defensive and there wasn’t as much room as we’d like up there but it hurt them going forward that they have to so many back. Job done, I think there’s a lot of harder tasks ahead, we know that we’ve to make a huge improvement but when a game is going like that lads won’t be going as hard when the game is in the bag, I think at half time that game was in the bag”.
Horse was a spectator in Hennessy Memorial Park in Miltown Malbay for the first round meeting of their fellow Group 2 opponents, Doonbeg and Ennistymon. “It was a good entertaining match, it could have went either way, I think Doonbeg could see themselves unfortunate at the end because they had Ennistymon on the ropes for the last ten minutes, I thought the penalty was a bit iffy that Ennistymon got but Ennistymon are still a fine outfit. It’s still all about scoring forwards and I think Ennistymon edged it a little bit on the distribution of scorers, Doonbeg still relying on David Tubridy even though he was marked out of it, two good solid teams, a good running game from both of them, they will be a big test for both of us”.
He was in no doubt that every game on from their Kilmihil tie was going to be more difficult. “I said that to the boys in the dressing room, we got the result but that is definitely one of the poorer teams we’ll meet in the championship and we recognise that, we had to come and do a job, we did the job, we know there’s tougher days ahead and we’ll be prepared for the tougher days, we do have to improve there’s no doubt about that”.
Lissycasey will hope to have Darren Keane back for selection while Mikey O’Neill who was ruled out with a hamstring was introduced from the bench for Kilmaley’s senior hurlers last weekend and may be called into action if required. “We have options which is the main thing but we need everybody going forward, we definitely have a lot to work on”.
