*Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLOONEY/QUIN and Newmarket-on-Fergus face off this weekend is one of the games with top billing as action resumes in the Clare senior hurling championship this weekend.
Both sides recording comprehensive wins in their opening encounters in Group 3, Clooney/Quin seeing of the challenge of Wolfe Tones by 1-22 2-11 while Newmarket-on-Fergus ran out 3-15 0-15 winners against Cratloe.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Clooney/Quin boss Tommy Corbett stressed the importance of collecting wins given the unpredictable nature of the Clare SHC. “We very happy one hundred per cent. The Clare championship is just so close. I mean who would have foreseen a nine point victory for Newmarket over Cratloe, who would have seen Kilmaley beating Ballyea and then Ballyea turned it around this weekend to beat a very fancied Inagh/Kilnamona team. So with such uncertainty, we’re delighted to get over the line”.
He added, “Since the Clare Cup Final in Kilkishen our sole focus has been on Wolfe Tones as we knew that we were going to be facing a stuff challenge today so we’re just delighted with our display and obviously the result”.
Youth continues to step up for Clooney/Quin, Corbett acknowledged. “We’ve seen our young players step up throughout the Clare Cup so we never had any doubt in their ability. Obviously the likes of Ryan [Taylor] and Silent [Shane McNamara] have left huge boots to fill but I thought we did it fairly adequately”.
Facing off with Newmarket-on-Fergus is a timely test for his charges, the former Éire Óg player maintained. He said of Newmarket’s win over Cratloe, “their attitude, application and work-rate was second to none and if we can’t match that, we’ll be in trouble. Hopefully we will as Newmarket are a big physical team with a really good blend of youth and experience, a little bit like ourselves I suppose. So it’s going to be a big test of our team but these are the challenges you want and we’re looking forward to testing ourselves”.
Recording an opening round win was vital, Blues manager Tomás Ryan said. “We’re really happy because a win in the first day out in championship is vital. After that the performance is a bonus so to get both, we’d have to be very happy with how the lads went about it. We just worked really hard from the front line up and a lot of the time, the inside line were two v three on the defenders but worked so hard to hassle and chase their opponents down. And a lot of the time we ended up turning over possession so when you do that you can get on the front foot and in that regard we’ve some super hurlers to create and take scores”.
Goals from Peter Power and Éanna Crimmins in the first half were crucial to beating Cratloe, he felt. “The goals were crucial and came at vital times too. Now they [Cratloe] had chances too especially in the first half, one or two goal chances that if they’d take could have changed the game differently and given them momentum. I think the goals we got kind of sapped the energy out of them so there was a big swing just before half-time and luckily for us, it went our way”.
He was also of the view that their challenge with Clooney/Quin would give an indication as to where they lie. “We’ve Clooney-Quin next and they are one of the favourites for the championship as their squad is so strong and they have a lot of good young players coming through. We’ll just have to focus and plan for them now and hopefully we can come out on top again”.
