*Éire Óg’s Gavin D’Auria. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
SQUAD DEPTH has made Éire Óg’s footballers the envy of every other senior club in the county.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
County champions Éire Óg face Lissycasey in the first of the Clare SFC semi-finals on Saturday evening at 16:30 in Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg.
Clare defender Ronan Lanigan who made his first appearance of the championship as a substitute in the closing stages of their quarter-final win is contention for his first start of the year. “Ronan has been carrying an injury for a while, he is back doing a good bit of training, he has an awful lot of work done in the last few weeks,” manager Shane Daniels told The Clare Echo.
Former county minor Gavin D’Auria has nailed down a position in defence for the Townies while dual-player Darren Moroney has also been a constant in his maiden senior campaign.
Daniels explained, “We’ve said from the start of the year when we went out in our first league game if lads are playing well and doing the right things they will keep the jersey, Gavin D’Auria had a super game in the quarter-final, Darren Moroney had a super game too, other lads are putting their hands up, it is not the usual guys that we expect nines out of ten everyday but that is the beauty of the squad and when you’re winning guys will put their hand up and work as hard as they can”.
Reflecting on their quarter-final joust with St Joseph’s Miltown, he said, “We got the result we wanted in the end, it was a tough battle, conditions were tough at times but we’re happy to get through to the semi-final which is what we set out to do”.
Up by a point at half-time, they looked for composure as they regrouped in the dressing room. “We played okay in the first half, we were a bit sloppy with a few of the things we did, the message at half time was to tidy things up a bit, stick to the plan and keep moving”.
Their clinical approach was evident as they finished off the game with 1-5 without reply. “We were preaching the same thing for the whole game, if we keep sticking to our principles of what we can do that we’d get joy, there was times when we were sloppy, we’ve loads to work on and loads to improve on which is really good, we’re looking forward to the next couple of weeks”.
