*Joshua Moloney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
KILMURRY IBRICKANE have contested nine of the last seventeen senior championship finals, make it eleven if replays are included but Sunday will be a first decider in the top tier for Joshua Moloney.
An ever-present at wing forward on the starting team for all five of their championship outings thus far, Moloney has been working tirelessly as the Bricks reached a first senior final since 2021.
This is his third year on the senior panel, “this is my first county final and I’m looking forward to,” he told The Clare Echo. “This is every lad’s goal when they start to play football to go on and play in a county final but we’ve to block out some of the build-up too and worry about playing the game, focus on training”.
For the past two seasons, he has been part of the Clare U20 team, this year serving as joint captain alongside Killimer’s Odhran Cunningham. There is a considerable jump from inter-county U20 football to senior club, he explained. “It’s a massive jump, even from the Clare U20s to this is a jump again, everything has to be tuned in for senior, in the Clare senior championship there are no easy games, it is a big jump. I was into the team early enough but it is one team being into the team and another thing to make the decision playing with the calibre of players on this team where you always have lads to look up to so you never get ahead of yourself. This year I’m happy enough, I’m going away ok”.
From Sea View Park in Quilty, Josh quipped that “it’s controversial” given that he is currently residing “just outside the town in Miltown”. To have then beaten St Joseph’s Miltown by eleven points in the quarter-final added some extra personal satisfaction, “You enjoy it more but the quarter-final was a sweet one for all of us, there is always a rivalry between Kilmurry Ibrickane and Miltown but it was sweet enough to beat them in a quarter-final, it is another step in the ladder”.
Moloney added, “That was a big game for us and we played really well, we knew Miltown were going to be tough and they had battled in their group because they are a tough team, we knew we’d have to put up a fair performance and give a good account of ourselves going into the knockout stages and we were delighted with ourselves and the result, it was great and we had to keep driving forward”.
Coming from a family steeped in the club, it is therefore no surprise that Josh who has been one of the more promising youngsters coming through the ranks of the club has gone on to impress at senior level. “Everyone in the family all played football, my uncles Brendan and Stephen were on the team that got to the All-Ireland final, Stephen got the goal in the final, my uncle Aidan was the selector for years and he was the manager in 2018 with the seniors, my aunts Lily, Loretta and Margaret all played ladies football and were involved in the management side of things, we’re well steeped in football tradition in the family”.
His uncle Steven was lining out with the Junior A and helped them to win the Division 4 league before calling time on his career, he would have always been a player that Joshua looked up to. “When you have your own you’d be following them, talking to them, I’ve a jersey at home which is one of his county final jerseys, it’s something nice to have when you have someone so close to home to be looking up to and try follow in their footsteps”.
Now in his second year studying environmental science at the University of Limerick, Moloney said he is “still going strong” on the studies, he developed an interest in science when at secondary school in St Joseph’s Spanish Point. “We’ve different projects to do and I’m interested in it so it’s easier to do it when you have the interest and it is something else other than football to be thinking about over the next two weeks as well”.
UL has also aided with his development as a footballer, he won a Division 1 All-Ireland league medal with the college as part of their freshers side and has made the panel of fifty for UL’s Sigerson Cup squad, a fine feat for a second year student. “You’re playing with a high calibre of players, at the start of the year I was doing a couple of trials for the Sigerson team and I’m on the panel of fifty, it’s between Sigerson 1 and 2 for the league, I haven’t been doing too much with them because I’m with Kilmurry Ibrickane. When you’re playing with players from other counties who are all high-level players you see it like with Danny Walsh on those teams for the last four or five years and he’s playing with the Clare seniors, it brings players on. It’s early yet, you’d always be delighted to get as far as you get and I’m delighted so far, for the moment Kilmurry Ibrickane is the main focus”.
Comfortable at both wing forward and wing back, Moloney said there is very little difference between the two roles. “Wing forward sometimes you are tracking back and doing the wing back’s job, the same sometimes at wing back you can be going forward and doing the wing forward’s job, they are interchangeable enough, there are slight differences but they are interchangeable enough, if you can play one you can play both”.
Happy to play in either spot, if given the choice wing back would be his personal preference, “I’ve always really played wing back up along, with Clare and everything but this year and last year with Kilmurry Ibrickane I’ve been wing forward, maybe wing back because the county experience I have there, I don’t mind though because they are much of a muchness, I’ll play in either spot”.
Dethroning Cratloe as county champions was a moment for Josh when he realised that Kilmurry Ibrickane are capable of lifting the Jack Daly in 2024. “I try to take the games one at a time and not be thinking of a county final before you get there because you can get ahead of yourself too and if you do that you can get caught. Going into the Cratloe game, we said we had every chance and we didn’t fear anyone and that we had every chance in it, we said 100 percent that there was a chance for us to be in the county final, we knew we had to go out in the Cratloe game and back that up to get our spot in the final, that was the moment”.
