This article is from page 68 of the 2011-02-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 68 JPG
IT was strange really. Leaving aside the grotesque part of GUBU, it was certainly unusual, bizarre and unbelievable.
Not that Kerry beat Clare in the McGrath Cup, but that afterwards that a small forest of reporters, local to Kerry from the print and radio media, and national hacks too, tagged along with The Cla re People and The Cla re Cha mpion representatives as they got the few quotes from Banner boss Micheál McDermott.
Kerry boss Jack O’Connor, captain Tomás Ó Sé et al were left behind on the Lewis Road pitch – Clare were the story, maybe because they felt they’d get no story from Jack and his lads because McGrath Cup football in January doesn’t exactly get their pulse for football up and running.
Yeah, Kerry wanted to win, simply because they don’t do losing too often, but Clare really wanted it because the chance of squaring off against Kerry in a final doesn’t come around too often. McDermott admitted as much afterwards, while at the same looking at the much bigger picture of the upcoming National League campaign.
“When you get to the final you want to win it and we’re disappointed we didn’t win today,” he revealed, “but it’s about more than that. As a management team, we’ve learned a lot from the McGrath Cup. For the players, they’ve learned a lot from the campaign too.
“We have learned an awful lot from today’s game and learned a lot from playing Kerry. Sometimes you learn more from losses than from victory. We have to improve on areas of our game and it will make us a better team.”
That their best wasn’t good enough, said McDermott was down to mistakes and a midfield wipe-out where David Moran and Seamus Scanlan ruled the skies.
“We made a lot of mistakes. We lost out big-time in the middle of the field. It was an area they dominating and missing Gary Brennan today was a huge loss for us in that sector. We were missing Gary Brennan and Ger Quinlan, who are a big fulcrum of our midfield area. It was the area we had trouble with. The platform for their victory came from that area. They won a lot of clean, first time ball and it put us on the back foot.
“It was disappointing today with the frees we missed, because the last three days most of those were going over. It was just a bad day at the office for our free takers today. We hope that when we go up to Carrick-on-Shannon next weekend that it won’t be the case.
“We learned a lot of lessons out of the game. The encouraging side of it is that although we missed a couple of easy frees that could have equalised that game up. In the last five to ten minutes we were still willing to chase the game and still trying to go for a victory and a draw. That’s good for the character of the team.
“Our defence has been good in the campaign to date. We have been very tight marking. The quality of the ball that Kerry sent in meant that they got some really good scores. There are a lot of new players in on the team this year. There is a lot of work for ourselves to do. It’s the month of January and we learn from our experience today and move on. This is the basis of the panel we’re going to be working with for the National League,” added McDermott. MCGRATH FOOTBALL CUP FINAL