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*Éire Óg’s Danny Russell is held by Shane Woods. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
SUCCESSIVE quarter-final exits in the Clare SHC have been experienced by Éire Óg’s hurlers after they left themselves with “too much to do” following their first half display.
Trailing by eight points with twenty seven minutes played in Saturday’s quarter-final against Inagh/Kilnamona, a stronger second half from Éire Óg brought them to within two points and an excellent Éamonn Foudy penalty save from David Reidy on the fifty eighth minute ensured Inamona held on for victory.
Foudy also made a brilliant second half save from Danny Russell on thirty three minutes while he threw his body on the line late on when danger was lurking around his goalmouth.
At the same Cloister end of Cusack Park in the first half, Inagh/Kilnamona made no mistake when goal chances presented themselves to Eoghan Foudy and Niall Mullins.
Éire Óg manager, Gerry O’Connor felt the clinical nature in front of goals was the big difference between the sides. “They got two goal chances and took them, we probably got three goal chances and didn’t take them. To be fair to Foudy in goals, he was excellent, he managed the game with his puckouts but also managed to make two unbelievable saves in fairness. We also left David Fitzgerald loose in the first half and he got two points, in a tight game a lot has to go right for you, everything didn’t go right for us but ultimately they got two goal chances and they took them, we got three and didn’t take them which is the simplistic way.
“To be fair to them (Inagh/Kilnamona) they were excellent, they worked really hard all over the field, when David Fitzgerald was over here on the left wing there was some puckouts going down that wing, we knew that and overloaded it but they still got ahead of us on the breaks, we can have no complaints, the better team won especially in the first half because they were superb”.
Inagh/Kilnamona’s defence also managed to curtail the influence of Shane O’Donnell and David Reidy who between them finished with 0-2 from play. O’Connor flagged that Éire Óg also managed to limit Aidan McCarthy to two points from play. “They did but in a game like this we still did okay like Aidan had a good impact on the scoreboard from frees, he had a point or two from play but I think both sides negated both big guns but it came down to the fact that they got two goal chances and they took them but we didn’t take ours”.
O’Connor, a three-time All-Ireland and Munster winning joint manager of the Clare U21 hurlers did not believe their unbeaten run in the Group of Death took too much from them. “Look at the way we finished, we put in a great second half performance, we got it back to two points several times. If we took the opportunities that we created for ourselves but ultimately we gave ourselves too much to do in the first half, we got an awful lot of shots off in the second half, we didn’t get enough shots off at all in the first half”.
While the Ennis’ hurling side finish the year with no silverware, they made strides with the amount of players blooded in the senior championship such as Robert Loftus, Darragh Stack, Conor Perill, James O’Dwyer, Eoin O’Regan, Luke Malice and Marco Cleary. “Six or seven fellas made their debuts which is promising for the future, that is great for next year but right now that doesn’t feel like a great achievement for all the year”.
