*Darragh McNamara battles with Michael Lewis. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
WIDES PROVED costly for St Flannan’s College’s hopes of reaching a first Dr Croke Cup final in twenty years.
Presentation College Athenry had four points to spare over St Flannan’s on Saturday when knocking the Ennis school out of the All-Ireland competition for the second year running.
Harry Doherty scored St Flannan’s goal but they had five missed goal chances over the hour along with seventeen wides and their inefficiency in front of the posts derailed their cause.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, manager of the St Flannan’s side, Brendan Bugler acknowledged they were wasteful with their shots. “The difference in the end was the amount of misses we had. You can’t shoot that many wides and expect to win a game and if you do, you’re very very lucky. Athenry hit under ten whereas we had 17 or 18 wides which clearly was the difference. We might have gotten a bit more luck though. I mean if Ben’s shot had bounced into the goal off the crossbar rather than down on the line, I think we might have kicked on. So it’s a disappointing end to the year but we’ve had a good solid season. It’s hard to get to this stage so we’ll dwell on the positives”.
Use of the ball was also jumping out at the two-time All Star as an area they could have been stronger. “There was a strong wind there and we probably could have used the ball a little bit more with its aid in the second half when we were probably too direct at times. That said, I thought the defence throughout were heroic so I’m so disappointed for the players because they have given everything to this”.
Coming up short on a chance to line out in Croke Park will sting for the Flannan’s hurlers, he noted. “It would have been lovely to take it to the last day in Croke Park but it’s not to be. Hopefully they can take this experience and the learnings too back to their clubs as well as the county sides in the next couple of months and years.
“We’ll keep plugging away and do our best in schools hurling to try and get back to this stage again. You’ll go back with the first years eventually and try and bring a group up and sometimes you’ll be successful and sometimes you won’t. That’s just the nature of schools hurling but hopefully there’ll be better days ahead,” Bugler added.
