This article is from page 69 of the 2011-11-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
SOMETIMES economy of words are what the sports psychologist orders. A case of what’s not said, because there’s no need – no need to tell the players what they know already.
There was some of mindset hovering around the Crusheen dressing room on Sunday as the Clare champions faced up to the supreme test of the second half of the Munster semifinal.
They’d been here before, albeit that last year’s championship clash against Kilmallock was a quarter-final. In the dressing room and ready to rumble and kick on for victory – their first ever in Munster championship fare, but they failed.
Surely this is what was said and hammered home? Again and again?
Not so says manager Michael Browne, whose man management and coaching skills has been the catalyst for Crusheen to rise from the ashes of county final defeat in 2007 to back-to-back titles and now the Promised Land of a Munster final.
“It wasn’t what was said,” he says after his side’s tour de force by the banks. “It was just the feeling in the dressing room. Last year we came out after half-time in a comfortable position and looking as if we were in a nice place against Kilmallock. They absolutely destroyed us in the first few minutes, so under no circumstances was that going to happen to us this year. That’s the focus that you saw when they came back out on the pitch.
“We had never won a title in the history of the club until last year – it was a massive thing for us and maybe it was asking a bit too much to expect them to go out and perform in Munster after that.
“This year there was a real determination there that we were going to go at least one step further, the problem being of course that we were in a semi-final in our first game, which made it that little bit harder. We didn’t even think about that, we just thought about the game last year, how we messed up in it last year and how we weren’t going to let it happen again this year. Thanks be to God we didn’t,” adds Browne.
All thanks to those 13 second half points, but also the six in the first half that provided the foundations that Browne points to as the real winning of this semi-final.
“We put in a great performance in the first half. I was very pleased that we were only two points down at half-time,” he says. “I knew that the breeze was strong because we had done a good bit of a warm-up on it. We were conscious of that. I thought that in the first half our backs weren’t as outstanding as they normally are, but I knew that they rise to it in the second half and that’s how it turned out.
“We do have a really good defence and a really good team, everyone of them can play and everyone of them can play really well and I’m really delighted with the performance. Our forwards have been much maligned in Clare, yet they came down here today and took some fantastic scores in the second half.
“We’re in the Munster final now. When you reach a final, everyone has a 50/50 chance. We’ll be going for it.”
Time to celebrate and then Na Piarsaigh. Then go for it.