This article is from page 68 of the 2011-10-18 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 68 JPG
JOHN Kennedy may only have linked up with Kilmurry Ibrickane with the first rays of summer, but you could say that he goes back a long way with the club that’s only a scenic boat ride from Asdee around Loophead to Quilty.
All because, back in 2004 when Clare had its biggest football day of the new millennium by beating Sligo by 1-11 to 0-11 in the inaugural Tommy Murphy Cup for the All-Ireland B Championship, Kilmurry provided more to Banner side than any other club.
Dermot O’Brien, Odran O’Dwyer, Enda Coughlan and Evan Talty saw action that day seven years ago – for Kennedy’s second coming as a championhip winner in Clare the latter three were still invovled.
As Kennedy peeled away from the throng after the final whistle, he was just happy to be part of it all, having been drafted into the backroom team after his commitments with the Kerry under 21s were over with and in Kilmurry’s hour of need.
“It’s a great day for Kilmurry, it’s a great day for the parish, it’s a great day for everyone involved in the team,” he says.
“We have worked really hard for this. This was a job started off by Ger Lawlor, Joe Hurley and Patrick Murrihy. I came in in May.
“These guys are fantastic. They worked extremely hard in the time I’ve been with them and before that. I would say we have been threatening a display like this for some time and today everything seemed to come right for us.
“We said to ourselves beforehand ‘this is their first county final, we need to start well’.
“We have started well in a lot of games, but haven’t been carrying it on. Today we did, we got the scores on the board early and kicked on from there and weren’t going to let them back into it.
We worked extremely hard over the past few weeks. We were creating the chances in previous games, we just weren’t taking them. It would be a lot more worrying if we weren’t taking the chances. We had to turn more of our possessions into scores. Today we did that. We only ended up with six wides in 60 minutes. That’s a good return.”
With that Kennedy is swept away by well-wishers. Job done. Jack Daly heading for the Hand, with Kennedy preparing for night in Quilty as the most prized possession in Clare football heads for what has been it’s favourite home since the new millennium dawned.