This article is from page 68 of the 2011-10-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 68 JPG
AS A player, Christy Chaplin was on both winning and losing sides on county final day. But even though his young squad made considerable strides this year to contest their first final in nine years, it doesn’t make defeat any easier to swallow.
“At half-time, we thought we were well in there. It was only four points to three, only a point in it but we had scoring chances and didn’t take them in the first half. Crusheen then for a ten minute period got four or five scores and that was the difference.
“Even when we got the ball down at our end, they closed us down well and they won the rucks. Physically they came out with ball and we could make no inroads but look, we have no complaints because we were beaten by the county champions. We gave it a go and it wasn’t good enough today.
“On another day, things might have gone differently. We got the penalty in the first half and it went over the bar but for a lengthy period in the second half we didn’t score for a long, long time. Gilly proably had a chance early on for a goal in the second half but it didn’t come off and they just tacked on the points so we can have no complaints.”
Chaplin need only look to his opponents to realise how difficult it is to win your first final with a new team. After all, Crusheen missed out in the 2007 decider to Tulla but once they got back there last year against Cratloe, they were doubly determined not to let another opportunity slip by.
“Maybe it’s true what they say that you have to lose one to win one. We’re young but at the end of the day, we came up here today to win it and we didn’t so we will just have to start again at the bottom and hopefully we will be back.”
With an average team age of just 24, you can take that as a given.