Game played worked a treat – O’Neill

WHILE Sunday was Pat O’Shea’s first County Championship as a manager, for Harry O’Neill it marked his fourth involvement in a Bishop Moynihan Cup win for Dr Crokes going back to his time as manager of the 2000, 2010 and 2011 successes.

For the Killarney club selector, Sunday’s win marked the perfect execution of a gameplan.

“We knew what was going down the tracks from Kenmare District with their performances in getting here.

“It’s one thing we have done in each game this year is to try and set ourselves up well against every team that we played. Today was probably the day it came off perfectly for us in terms of our set-up,” O’Neill said.

He admitted getting the first goal of proceedings was another big bonus.

“We’ve played Kieran [O’Leary] out on the half-forward line in recent weeks, but today I think he showed that he is more suited to being closer to goal with how he took that chance.

“We were delighted with how we responded to their goal by getting the next few points because it showed how much the players really wanted to stay in control of the game.

“Colm [Cooper] had a magnificent game today. I remarked to Pat during the game that the more we got him on the ball, the more in control we looked and he really took the game by the scruff of the neck in the last 20 minutes I felt,” the Crokes selector said.

The mix of youth and experience amongst the Crokes ranks was another feature of last Sunday’s success and O’Neill agreed that the challenge of getting the balance right on that front is a welcome one.

“Age wise we range from Eoin [Brosnan] at 36 down to 19 or so and that’s a great range to have because the younger players can learn so much from Eoin in a performance like the one he had today.

“We’ve so many players that want to make their claim for a start on the team not just in terms of the youngsters but also players like Luke Quinn so it is a big balancing act for us as a management team to get all those individual desires right for the benefit of the team,” he said.

There are no grand ambitions for what is to follow now for Crokes according to O’Neill.

“We’re only taking each game one at a time this year. For us that means Listry in the O’Donoghue Cup this weekend. After that we will think about Munster. Whether its Cratloe or Kilmurry/Ibrickane we know that we will be in a tough encounter because they have come close to beating us in recent years.

“I’ve said before that regardless of inter-county level you have to respect every team you play in a competition like it [Munster] because those teams are County Champions in their own right.”