This article is from page 103 of the 2008-09-16 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 103 JPG
FOR a team that has been on the brink of All-Ireland success so many times this decade, finally winning the title was understandable a flood of emotion for all involved. Howev- er, the dramatic manner of the win brought a mixed bag of both relief and elation as the players attempted to take in the achievement.
After the heartbreak of last year’s defeat to Derry, another defeat would have been almost unthinkable but fortunately Clare persevered and fi- nally got their hands on the elusive New Ireland Cup after a intermina- ble gap of twenty two years.
And there was no-one more re- lieved than manager Colm Hanley.
“Tt’s unbelievable. After all that has happened over the last couple of years, the fact that it’s done now and
we have achieved what we set out to do is fantastic and full credit to the girls, they were absolutely amazing so I’m delighted.”
Despite being behind for the major- ity, Clare never gave up the ghost and kept chipping away at Offaly’s lead but even near the death, Hanley nev- er felt that the game was lost.
“No. To be honest with you, we kind of felt that we always stuck in WeKeEoe
“They didn’t really pull away from us at any point. They went four points up and five points up but we stayed hanging in there and got the few important scores. They never got away from us so as long as that was the case, there was always a chance. I suppose with two minutes to go, It was more out of hope than anything else that we were thinking but we did feel they were capable of pulling it
out of the bag and thankfully they did.”
Tactically, Clare’s switches were all important with Shonagh Enright and Fiona Lafferty playing an important role in the decisive goal and Kate Lynch dominating from centre-back but Hanley feels that it was the whole side’s second half effort that earned Oca heulaoay
“At the end of the day, you make decisions and thankfully they went right yesterday but there is no guar- antee of anything.
‘“Shonagh in fairness to her obvi- ously made a massive impact, Kate Lynch moving to centre-back really turned the tide and deserved to get the player of the game award but the whole team really put their shoulder to the wheel for the second half and pulled out the result so we are de- lighted.”