This article is from page 89 of the 2009-11-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 89 JPG
COLM Honan’s reaction to Clon- lara’s shock county final defeat to Cratloe was to let his players go. His reckoning was that the mileage in their legs to reach county final day would have to do, because the stom- ach for getting back to the grind just wouldn’t be there.
However, lack of appetite for train- ing could in no way be construed as being equal to lack of interest — Ho- nan wanted this and so did his play- ers, simply out of a fear of the dam- age a second big-game defeat could do.
“Tt would have been very very hard to take another loss. Playing in two county finals and to lose both would have been a disaster for us,” admits Honan.
“We didn’t really drive them on for this game. We didn’t make a huge
deal of it beforehand but at the same time once we were out on the field we were very anxious to win it. I thought that they played fairly well at times.
“We hadn’t met at all after the county final, apart from meeting on Friday night for a chat. There are a lot of leaders on that team and it showed at various times during the game when we wanted it most.
“We won the last three puck-outs having conceded the goal. They were puck-outs that were hard to win against the wind but we won them. They got a few chances but our workrate put them under savage pressure. We finished out the game strongly.
“The pitch was in beautiful condi- tion, but conditions were very diffi- cult. Fellas found it very hard to turn, Sometimes the ball would bounce, other times to would just go plop. First touch was difficult, passing was
difficult. It was hard to judge where it was going to end up so it was a bit of a lottery at times.”
Clonlara won that lottery and so in part exorcised some of their county final demons — of course they will never fully go away until Canon Hamilton is back where they feel it belongs, but Honan for one is look- ing forward to trying to meet that challenge.
“You don’t get too many chances to win county finals,’ he admits, “but having said that this Clonlara side are young enough. There’s a young enough squad there and they’ll come back strong again. I know they’ll come back again in the champion- ship. It’s onwards and upwards, go for a few pints and winter well and come back again next year”’.