This article is from page 87 of the 2008-05-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 87 JPG
THE romance of the cup — it’s cer- tainly alive and well and kicking in Clare. Rock Rovers are the living and footballing embodiment of this sporting cliché that’s been kicked around for as long as cup football has eo EAL oee
To look at them on the field on Saturday, they smacked of a mixem gatherem crew that could have been rounded up for action that very after- noon. Their jerseys were old, so old that some of the numbers had faded away 1n washing machines down the years. As for the togs — there were many different shades of navy on pa- rade. Some had white stripes, others had logos, more had not.
Maybe the status of being under- dogs and underlings of Clare club soccer allowed them such latitude with their attire. More importantly,
maybe it lulled cup specialists Bun- ratty into some false sense of secu- wie
After all, Bunratty had every right to be supremely confident. They’d played in four cup finals since °99, winning them all. They fully ex- pected it to be five, having accounted for champions Avenue United, last year’s runners-up Moher Celtic and emerging Lifford along the way.
Thing is, Rock Rovers were reading from a different script. In the huddle beforehand captain Francis Daniels barked his final few words, before deferring to his younger brother S)ateb ales
The younger Daniels didn’t say much, but what he said hit home straight away. To grunts and bellows of approval he roared: “We’re not leaving here without a medal”.
Rock didn’t. Everyone lived up to Daniels’ battlecry, from keeper
Eric Murphy to 12