This article is from page 87 of the 2011-11-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 87 JPG
IT was the celebrated and much quoted coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince ‘the Lip’ Lombardi who said “if football is a game of inches, so is a career success”.
Kilmurry Ibrickane coach John Kennedy didn’t dip into Lombardi’s library for that one, but he might well have, such was the thinness of the line that separated his side from trumping Dr Crokes in this epic Munster championship encounter in Beauty’s Home.
“The ball that came off the post at the end, if that had gone in,” he says. “It was inches,” he adds.
And, it’s true. Kilmurry were that close to victory. Dr Crokes were that close to defeat.
“It was a great game,” continues Kennedy. “We gave it everything and you have to be hugely proud of the boys. The boys played very well. We had a gameplan and the boys moved the ball very well and took some great scores and I suppose our kicking was good. We hadn’t many wides and we were disciplined.
“We emptied the tank and have no excuses. We came down here to the lion’s den and were up three points early in the second half, playing great stuff. We were on top and going well early in the second half and needed to get another point or two to kill it off. Three points ahead, one point they were back in it and that’s the way it happened.
“The injury to Cookie was a real psychological blow. He was a huge loss. We had Odran out and our bench was kind of limited. I’m not making excuses, but you can’t ask anymore of the lads. They battled right to the end. The Crokes had the bit of craft. They got a few scores near the end and that made the difference,” he adds.
Another difference, Kennedy concedes, was the sending off of Daithi Casey that give Kilmurry a numerical advantage they failed to exploit.
“Sometime an extra man can be difficult,” argues Kennedy. “When you have a man less, you actually work that bit harder. Maybe we went into a false sense of security when they went down to 14 men. We weren’t getting a lot of ball around the middle at that stage and even though the Crokes were down they were still holding possession.
“We had a lot of energy emptied at that stage and it was a high tempo game with a lot of hard hits. Crokes are a superb team and we knew that coming down. They are worthy winners and came out of it in the end. We had no excuses.
“They had leaders there when they needed them, but having said that with five minutes to got it was still in the melting pot and if that ball that came off the post had gone in, it could have different.”
Vince Lombardi’s inches again.