*A hurley breaks off Peter Power as Dylan McMahon keeps him under pressure. Photograph: Ruth Griffin
MIXING YOUTH WITH EXPERIENCE has been credited by the Newmarket-on-Fergus senior hurling manager for their positive run to date in this year’s championship.
Feakle must secure a very comprehensive win in excess of 29 points against Whitegate to deny Newmarket-on-Fergus a place in the quarter-finals.
Although the Blues are still training, the game they are preparing for is still unknown, manager Tomás Ryan acknowledged. “Our scoring difference is positive ahead of the final round. We have a bye so we just have to wait and see what happens but we won’t be getting carried away. We’ve a break now so we’ll just have to knuckle down and train hard over the next few weeks and hopefully it’s a quarter-final that we’re preparing for next.”
Reflecting on their fourth round win over Clonlara, he outlined, “It was a great contest. We knew it would be and we also knew that we had to win it so it puts us in a good position now. We’re by no means through [to the quarter-finals] yet, we’ll have to see how the results in the final round go but for the moment, we’re just happy to get the win as any time you win in this championship is a good day”.
He continued, “Everyone stood up I felt. Our defence was extremely solid all the way through but I felt that they really came to the fore late on as did our forwards in that last 15 minutes. I’ve been saying it all along that having both experience and youth is a great mix and our bench made an impact too so overall we’ve got a good squad. The sending off had a bit of a bearing on the result too perhaps but who knows as it could have been just as much a humdinger for a finish if both sides were at full strength”.
For Clonlara boss, the dismissal of Cathal ‘Tots’ O’Connell coupled with injuries to experienced players Oisin O’Brien, Colm Galvin and Kieran Galvin hindered them. “We’re gone out of the championship now but we’ll be better as a squad going forward after this year. We’ve missing the likes of Colm Galvin, Kieran Galvin and Oisin O’Brien so not too many teams could suffer the loss of those guys”.
Madden said, “It was a battle and I know that this might sound like a silly thing to say when knocked out of the championship but I’m really proud of these fellas. I mean we played a number of guys tonight that this time last year were playing in an intermediate relegation battle so I’m just so, so proud of them. They’ve worked so hard all year and we had a 19 year old Tommy Walsh making his senior championship debut inside in Cusack Park against Newmarket and I’m so proud.
“Okay we lost the battle and obviously the sending off had a big impact on the game but we found it out. People have accused us in the past of not being battlers but we did fight it out tonight. We knew that the type of team Newmarket are that if we didn’t front up early on, the game would have been over after only 15 minutes with the forwards they have. So we did front up and might have been more ahead by the break as we had a number of wides in the second quarter but we were right in it after half-time and got a great goal. However, with the amount of the injuries and a lot of young lads out there, we just ran out of a bit of stream but I didn’t think the final scoreline was a fair reflection”.
