*Kilmurry Ibrickane manager, David Egan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
KILMURRY IBRICKANE found it next to impossible to bypass an Éire Óg blanket in the middle third as they fell to their second county final loss in four seasons, both of which were at the hands of the Townies.
Two Keelan Sexton scores along with a Daryn Callinan point had Kilmurry Ibrickane off to a very bright start in Sunday’s final as they managed to keep Éire Óg scoreless for the first eleven minutes of the game.
Gavin Cooney’s eleventh minute goal was a blow that the West Clare side were never able to recover from, Bricks manager David Egan said. “We didn’t recover from the goal early days, we had a couple of chances early on before they got the goal and we didn’t capitalise on it, we were playing catch up since that even though it was a draw match when that went in, it quenched a good bit of energy in us and we found it very difficult to get going again, Éire Óg set a blanket up around the middle of the field and it was like a ping pong ball hopping off it and we couldn’t get by it”.
Although their start was their best period of the game, the Offaly man admitted he was frustrated by it. “I was disgusted because I thought we should have had at least a goal along with the three points, big games provide big moments when you take the big moments you win and when you don’t you lose”.
Captain Dermot Coughlan started for the side, a month after fracturing his foot but he bowed out after twenty six minutes and two minutes into the second half injury ended the involvement of the experienced Darren Hickey. “We have a good panel all year, we back ourselves, a hard job as a manager is to get that part right, you have to back the lads when they are coming on too, we won’t use that as an excuse, it is a solid Éire Óg and they will progress in the next competition they are in, we will have to go back to the drawing board to see how we can around it all”.
He told The Clare Echo, “I don’t think we went out to set up a blanket defence or they went out to set up a blanket defence, I feel that our energy was sapped by Éire Óg, they pressed up high on us and we couldn’t get by them, maybe they forced us to stay in our half and it might have looked like a blanket defence but that is the way it is, in fairness to Paul Madden and co they had their tactics spot on”.
