This article is from page 72 of the 2009-08-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 72 JPG
OH to be in the Corofin dressing room at half-time!
Let’s just say that Seamus Clancy would have had plenty of ammuni- tion to fire a few volleys or more to- wards his players.
They’d just had the advantage of a strong breeze in the first half but 11 lamentable wides had contributed to them kicking away what should have been a very healthy half-time lead.
Instead, Corofin had to contend themselves with a slender I-1 to O-3 advantage after a very forgettable 30 minutes of football.
And, even accounting for all this profligacy Corofin were grateful to be ahead – a Colm Clancy goal which opened their account in the IIth minute and a point from distance by Brendan Keane was all they had to show for 30 minutes.
It scarcely seemed enough against a Kildysart team that motored well enough into the wind. Gerry Kelly followed up where he left off against Clondegad when opening the scoring after eight minutes with a point from play – indeed Kelly was Kildysart’s only scorer in the half.
He chipped over a free in the 14th minute in response to Clancy’s goal, while a good point from play in the 23rd was Kildysart’s positive re- sponse to Brendan Keane’s 16th minute point for Corofin.
However, that’s were all the posi- tivity ended from Kildysart’s point of view, and presumably it’s where Seamus Clancy came into his own in the dressing room when lashing out a few home truths about his side’s first half performance.
They were obviously listening in- tently because they pummelled a dreadful Kildysart side into the sub- mission from the opening seconds of the second-half.
It’s true that the wind seemed to ease up considerably, but still the va-
garies of the weather couldn’t alone count for Corofin’s rejuvenation and Kildysart’s capitulation.
Corofin stormed forward from the throw-in. Twice they could have go- aled in the opening five minutes, but instead had to content themselves with points from a Damian Ryan free and an effort from play by John Keane, whose influence on proceed-
ings grew as the game progressed. The pattern of the early stages con- tinued almost uninterrupted for the rest of the game – Corofin were dom- inating all over the field, from the brilliant Eamonn Malone at full-back through to John Keane and Colm Clancy in the full-forward line. Clancy set up Damian Ryan for an- other point in the 43rd minute to put
Corofin 1-4 to 0-3 clear as Kildysart struggled to get the ball out of their own half.
Further Corofin points from John Keane and Ryan’s third of the hour put them 1-6 to 0-3 ahead entering the last ten minutes and killed off any hope of a Kildysart comeback.
The will wasn’t there among the Kildysart players everywhere – they
were already through to the semi- final stages thanks to earlier wins over Michael Cusack’s and Clonde- gad. This game clearly didn’t mean eel Uhes om Kem satsseeF
It meant everything to Corofin though as they at last found some of the winning form that swept them to this title three years ago.
Kildysart, for all their second half failures, did at least manage to reg- ister a couple of points near the end from Cian Cleary and Christy Clancy, but the fact remains that they’re now going into the semi-final stages on the back of a terrible display.
Corofin, meanwhile, are on the up after a 30 minutes in which they answered all the questions posed by their awful first 30 minutes.
It all meant that Clondegad’s 2-15 to 1-8 win over Michael Cusack’s was academic – they were out of con- tention for 2009.