This article is from page 69 of the 2011-02-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
LIMERICK manager Donal O’Grady returned to competitive action on Sunday with a huge weight of expectation on his shoulders but left Ennis free of any burden after comprehensively putting Clare to the sword.
After a tumultuous 2010 that saw up to 20 first choice panelists at odds with then manager Justin McCarthy, the siege was lifted by O’Grady’s men on Sunday to record the county’s first competitive victory in 19 months but true to form, the Cork man wasn’t getting excited just yet.
“The performance was all we were interested in really because the two points are handy but it’s the start of a long campaign.
“I suppose really it just comes down to work-rate and there is an awful lot of credit due to the lads themselves, they worked very hard. We are only training since January 2 so I wasn’t sure where we were at.
“Now I’m not sure where Clare are at either because you don’t know what the attitude of your opponents are as Clare were short a couple of players there.
“So we are happy with the win because it takes the pressure off. Two points is important in the first match if you can and it comes down to work-rate and Jerry Wallis has done great work with them since we came in in January so you would have to be pleased with the performance.”
“We reckoned that this would be a very difficult game for us and we were looking for a performance and you couldn’t fault the lads because everybody worked very hard.
“We made a couple of substitutions because with Andrew O’Shaughnessy and Niall Moran, tiredness just hit them and we felt that we would inject some fresh legs so you couldn’t fault us on work-rate and the win is pleasing.”
Asked about the lift that the win will give to the county as a whole, again O’Grady continued to play down what is essentially the first game in what could potentially be a long season for Limerick.
“I suppose anytime you win a match, you come back into the dressing room and you go back for the post-match meal and there is a bit more of a buzz there and there is bit more of a lift there than if you lose so all these things are important and confidence is important.
“I don’t know where we are going to end up this year but we are just going to take one game at a time.
“It was pleasing to come up to Ennis today as it was a tough one to start with. How intent Clare were on winning this match I’m not quite sure but we are pleased with it anyway.”
“Everybody who was going out on the field today were aware of what job they had to do and it worked for us today, it may not work next Saturday night against Westmeath and it may not work for the following mathc but it worked today and we have to be thankful for that.”