This article is from page 87 of the 2011-11-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 87 JPG
BEING from Miltown Malbay, Meelick manager Pat O’Rourke saw the Shams in action many times on Hennessy Memorial Park – that’s why he was prepared for what happened at the end when the former kingpins of Clare football kept plugging away and nearly ambushed his team.
“Kilrush were always to come at us,” he said drawing breath at the end, just after their seemingly unassailable seven-point lead had been chopped to the bare minimum. “They are a strong senior club and I new they would keep going. We just got over the line and that’s all that mattered.
“We missed easy scores in the first half and if you don’t take those scores you’re going to be in trouble. We knew we were good enough if we played to our potential and I think we did. Apart from missing handy scores we really did ourselves justice today,” he added.
And, that went for the year as a whole, a window into which O’Rourke introduced anyone who was listening as the junior championship trophy was being presented to captain Kevin Harnett. “We have been training since last February,” he revealed, “and between league and championship we have lost two games all year. So we had a lot of work put in. Today was the big one for us, the one we wanted to win.
“From now on everything else is a bonus. We will look forward to playing Munster Club. Any Kerry or Cork team that you play are going to be good. All we can do is go out and do our best to do the county proud,” he added. Meelick v Dr omid Pea r ses @ Meelick, Sunday 2pm Refer ee – Richa r d Moloney (Limer ick)