This article is from page 71 of the 2011-10-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 71 JPG
CLONDEGAD captain Gary Brennan summed it up best in his speech by stating that he had to take a second look at the cup to make sure it wasn’t all a dream. It wasn’t a dream, it was finally reality for Clondegad after the nightmare of recent finals and for Brennan, it was difficult to put his feelings into words.
“It’s hard to to be honest because it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’m just absolutely delighted. We’ve put a lot of work into it and I suppose it’s relief more than anything because we really felt we had a chance and if we had been beaten today, I suppose it would have been really hard to come back again. So I suppose we are relieved but also absolutely delighted.”
Relief because they never really put Kilmurry Ibrickane away at any stage despite holding the larger share of possession and chances.
“I wouldn’t say we were nervous coming into the game. We felt quite calm and confident, and not over confident at the same time, but look games go that way. Kilmurry are a fantastic club with a great pedigree and a lot of those players have won county championships and Munster championships so they don’t give up easy and were never going to give in.
“We were coming under severe pressure but the goal just pushed us ahead again and made it that bit harder for them to come back.”
And with Brennan leading a very young squad into top flight action next year, did he feel that this maturing crop could blossom at senior level?
“We won’t worry about blossoming yet,” he says with a smile, “we will worry about surviving to start with and we’ll see where we go from there. But look, there is great work going on in the club, a lot of good young players coming through and hopefully we can start building ourselves as a senior club but it will be all about survival to start with.”