Ó Cruadhlaoich pleased despite some concerns
AN Ghaeltacht manager Conall Ó Cruadhlaoich left the pitch in Mallow last Sunday with a beaming smile upon his face and after watching what had taken place over the previous hour and a half and who could blame him. Ó Cruadhlaoich had witnessed what his side had done to the best of what Cork has to offer, and couldn’t help but be impressed with his own charges.
“The final scoreline is not a fair reflection on Mallow, we knew they were a physical strong team. When you come out of Kerry you don’t really know what to expect, it is always new territory. The amount of people you can tap into for information is far reduced so we were expecting a physical battle and it was that. We tried to keep it wide to suit the young fast team that we have but we had chances in the first half that we didn’t take.
“We also have some concerns, particularly up the middle. They caused us problems up the middle with runners coming from deep – something we knew would happen but we still struggled do deal with it. Overall we are really happy though. We are a small club with a small pick, a young panel that we have to make the most out of and hopefully we can now go one step further. That said we won’t take our next opponents for granted as it will be a Munster Final and we will have to work hard to win it,” the An Ghaeltacht manager said.
An Ghaeltacht had been really impressive in the first half however they just led by five which seemed to dominate Ó Cruadhlaoich’s half time talk.
“We spoke about the first half and the importance of starting the second half fast. We knew they would react in the first 10 minutes so it was extremely important for us to put an emphasis on that 10 which we did and we got the goal which was crucial. We did slacken off after that when we should have pushed on more but overall delighted.”
The scoring threat brought by An Ghaeltacht on the day blew away the opposition and building an array of scorers has been something the club has been working on for some time.
“We identified six or seven years ago that we could have a problem going into the future with scorers and thankfully now we have an abundance of players that can get scores. Pace and being willing to shoot is important. Just letting these lads play is our motto. We don’t get into tactics and that sort of thing – they are young fellows who just want to play.
“We have had a great record this year in terms of wins over the whole season so we are just trying to let the lads perform. We have a big game this weekend in the West Kerry Championship and that is huge to us as well. That is not a lesser competition to us - it is treated the same and we will need to get up for that now as well.”
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