*Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
Amalgamations “are the future,” the manager of the recently crowned Clare U21A football champions has said.
Kildysart, Coolmeen, Shannon Gaels and Kilmihil joined forces as Cíl Cúil Gaels in the championship, they recorded a five point win in the decider beating Éire Óg on Thursday.
Joint manager, Paul Reidy felt the success was just reward for their panel of players. “The better team and if we took the goal chances we probably would have won more comfortably. We don’t do things easily. Look its reward for the players, they have worked vary hard over the last five or six weeks. It means a lot to them, we have won nothing. I heard on the way up that Éire Óg had won six under 21 A titles. For a lot of our players out there they had won nothing. This is a very proud moment”.
Reidy went on to say “I am a Kilmihil man talking about this but I am as proud of the Kildysart, Shannon Gaels and Coolmeen lads as I am of our Kilmihil lads. They have worked very very hard. They have trained three nights a week for the last six weeks and that’s what got them over the line”.
Asked what he would say to those who say that four clubs should not be allowed to amalgamate Reidy replied, “amalgamations are the future. It’s where our clubs are right now, amalgamations are here to stay. Look at the programme, it’s almost all amalgamations that were in the under 21 finals this week We just don’t have the population. These clubs have been amalgamated for three or four years and no one had any issue when we weren’t winning. This success has come about because of hard work and for no other reason. There are good players there and they would be sitting at home this evening if the four clubs hadn’t come together. We only had 22 players togged out, that’s what we have at the moment”.
“Winning this title is a big boost for the clubs involved. There are a lot of Inter county standard players there, they are the future of Clare football and they got exposure over the last few weeks playing Corofin, Ennistymon and Éire Óg, They were playing the best of the best and it will only improve those players. There are very good individuals there. The performance in this championship didn’t come about by throwing four teams together. They worked hard, we worked hard. All those boys are friends, they played development squad level together, they socialise together, there is a really good bond there and anyone at any of our games will have seen that they play for each other. It’s very player led. We wanted it that bit more tonight, probably because we haven’t had the success”.
