Dingle to draw on lessons of the club final this Sunday

IF there’s one thing this Dingle team has shown it’s the ability to put a chastening defeat behind it.

After giving up six goals to East Kerry in the second round of this competition they showed real grit and determination to dig deep and turn that around a month later into a thirteen point victory. That’s the sort of resolve they’re going to need to see off a Dr Crokes side who comfortably saw them off in the Senior Club final.

“Well you’d like to think you’d learn off every defeat that you have throughout the year and that would be no different,” Dingle selector Diarmuid Murphy says.

“We were well beaten on the day, the club final here, and we didn’t perform on the day, we were beaten by the better team. We’re hopeful, we’re optimistic that we’ll turn up a better outfit next Sunday, but we’ll see.

“It’s fine to be saying that kind of thing, but you actually have to get out on the pitch and do it. You have to do your work on the training ground during the week, you have to have your game-plan and execute it on the day regardless of the situation and we’d be hopeful we’d do that the next day.

“I think it’d be foolish really not to learn from the defeats really, because the way the championships are run now you’ve your club championships early on and you have county league and from there to when the county championship starts the structure is you don’t have your county players for county league games.

“It was a big competition for us, we did well to make the final, but we were well beaten on the day and whatever we have to learn from that we have to take from it. I think we have really in the championship so far, but more to do next Sunday.”

As for any fears that last Sunday might have been Dingle’s county final, Murphy quickly dispels such sentiments.

“The key thing is to get talking to fellas straight away and even in the dressing room there we highlighted that point after the game and it’s important that the lads realise there’s more work to do and they do,” he says.

“We do have a young team, but we have a lot of lads who’ve played big games over the years. We’ve lads who’ve won All Ireland minors in Croke Park, Hogan Cups up there so there is a share of experience in our team and we’ll draw on that this week in getting ourselves ready for next Sunday.”