This article is from page 64 of the 2008-10-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 64 JPG
SECONDS after the final whis- tle sounds, Tommy Curtin springs from the dugout and is enveloped in a small ocean of Liscannor bod- ies. Between the thick mist that has cloaked the field and the celebrations going on around him, he’s difficult to pinpoint but suddenly he shuffles off to the side of the festive group where you catch him and ask for two min- utes of his time.
Face beaming, he says he’ll give you ten.
You ask him was he concerned in that extraordinary second-half when it looked like Doonbeg had sucked the momentum from Liscannor.
He pauses for a minute, gathers his breath and tells you that yes, there’s no point saying other otherwise, he was anxi0us.
“I’d have to say I was worried al- right. They got the goal, they went ahead then by two points, got it up to three and there wasn’t a whole load of time left.
“But deep down I still had faith. At half-time, I knew we hadn’t got go- ing. We’d only kicked a couple of points and I sat the lads down and said that we hadn’t brought the inten- sity that a semi-final of a champion- ship deserved. It was put up to them that they had to come back out and improve.”
That they did. The vigour and force they applied for 25 minutes after the break was almost tangible. They scavenged for breaks, closed space and defended from the front but most of all, they didn’t once show any signs of panic.
Even after Doonbeg shook the net, Liscannor held their nerve and be- lieved that the football they played to bring them into contention would allow them breast the finishing tape ahead of Doonbeg.
Though Doonbeg continued to push every central Liscannor attack out wide towards the sidelines, Lis- cannor, contrary to the belief before the game, kicked well in front of the posts to claw back the deficit and
spring the win.
“We looked on the second-half as the time to step up. We said, look, were in a decent position to go back out and face the elements. In the group game, it was a different
situation at half-time and maybe we showed some complacency that day.
“That wasn’t going to happen here. We said we’d leave everything we had on the fields and in fairness to these lads, that’s exactly what they did.”
As he travelled to Miltown in the early afternoon rain of Saturday, Cur- tin’s confidence was rising. It wasn’t an arrogance or conceit, just a sense of contentment that the work logged since the summer began would tip the balance.
‘“We’ve put in an amount of train- ing and I just felt wed step it up today. So I did feel a certain con- fidence and that’s nothing against Doonbeg. They’re a fantastic side as they showed, but I had faith in these lads. We’ve had a couple of lads out injured and they were in the mind of the 15 lads who started as well.
“It’s an amazing feeling to get toa county final. It’s such a small parish, it must be one of the smallest foot- balling parishes in the country and it’s great for everybody involved to have that crack at the title.
“But look. We’ve still won nothing. We’re back to basics again in a couple of days, back training and we’re go- ing to be focused on the final. That’s the one we’ve got to get over now.”
One mountain scaled, another peak in the distance. With Curtin ready for this final ascent, Liscannor should have the energy and enthusiasm to reach the top.