‘Clare football has improved at a lot of levels’ insists wary Maher ahead of trip to Banner
ELEVEN years on from their last voyage beyond the county, Kilcummin go back into the Munster Club Championship action again, beginning with a trip to Clare like they did in 2007 when they travelled to Ennis and defeated Lissycasey in the first round of the senior event in what was a very tight affair.
This time its an awful lot different as they go to a grade below at Intermediate level and head to the western part of the Banner County to take on Kilrush Shamrocks.
Team manager Willie Maher did commentary on a club video of the Lissycasey game alongside club stalwart Billy Doolan that year, but occupies a totally different role on the sideline this time.
The long wait since the May Bank Holiday Sunday for this fixture has had its advantages and disadvantages as Maher explains.
“It seemed fine back in May when we beat Glenflesk in the final and appeared to have all this time to get ready, but with East Kerry going as far as they did we have had very little time to train as a team although fitness thankfully isn’t an issue going into this with the training the players we had in with East Kerry were doing,” the Kilcummin boss said.
Kevin McCarthy was the big causality on the injury front for the club with East Kerry’s extended run, getting injured as he did in the drawn game the district played against Dingle.
More encouragingly though Kerry Junior Captain Kieran Murphy looks to be recovered from an injury he sustained playing with CIT in the Cork County Championship as Maher says last Saturday’s O’Donoghue Cup Quarter-Final in the district against Listry was treated on its own merits.
“The O’Donoghue Cup is something we try and prepare well for each year and we knew Listry would make it tough after having beaten Glenflesk in the First Round. We were happier to win for keeping our interest alive in that rather than viewing it solely as preparation for this Saturday,” the All-Ireland Senior medal winner said.
Of course a tight battle for promotion back to Division One of the County League involving Austin Stacks, Na Gaeil, Castleisland Desmonds and themselves in Division 2 was a major help in the meantime even if they lost their last round fixture to Kenmare Shamrocks back in the middle of August.
Having been present at the Clare Intermediate decider where Kilrush got the better of Kildysart, Maher takes heed of the rich history the West Clare club have in a previous generation.
“It was a good hard battle between Kildysart and themselves a few weeks ago, the sort that will stand to them.
I saw a Clare paper say that ‘the sleeping giants have arisen again’ in describing their win which tells you a lot about the success the club had before at senior level up there,” the former Milltown/ Castlemaine player said.
Making Kilrush favourites on the basis of home advantage, Maher hopes that Kilcummin can get the rub of the green on Saturday lunchtime.
“Clare football has improved at a lot of levels when you see the battles Kilmurry / Ibrickane and Cratloe have given Dr Crokes while Dromid Pearses had a very difficult game up there last year as well in the Junior competition.
“Our main hope is to make the right use of the ball when we have it, do the simple things well and see where that takes us.”
Club Chairman Eugene McSweeney meanwhile hopes that the players can rise to the occasion on Saturday.
“Thankfully we are a lot stronger than we were a few years ago and each game they played in Kerry back in April against some very strong teams they rose to the occasion. We feel like we learnt a lot the last time we were in Munster a decade ago and know that we must step up to the challenge on Saturday.”