Reen and O’Mahony know the significance of beating Dr Crokes in East Kerry final

A LONG year for Rathmore that started with defeat to John Mitchels on January 10 in a 2015 County League Division Two promotion play-off is now at a successful end. Penalty scorer Mark Reen has a deeper understanding than most of what it’s like in trying to defeat Dr Crokes, given that he’s a nephew of Pat O’Shea and first cousin to Gavin and Bryan on the Crokes panel, and Reen acknowledged how much goes into a success over the Killarney side.

“Anytime you play them is a massive challenge, you have to perform on the day and hope a lot of things go right for you in order to beat them. We got a lot of the work we had done in advance right and it’s great success when you consider what the Crokes have ahead of them in the New Year something we wish them well in,” the Rathmore penalty scorer said.

Reen stressed the importance of the O’Donoghue Cup to the club and agreed that Shane Ryan is now a massive asset to the club in their hopes for further success.

“The O’Donoghue Cup is still probably the most important competition of the year to us and we didn’t look past either Currow or Spa when it came to playing them. Shane (Ryan) is such a massive player to any side, he can win a lot of the different sorts of ball you send into him both off his left and off his right and he is a big part of what we are doing at the moment,” he said.

When asked about Aidan O’Mahony, Reen said he didn’t see any reason for the now four time O’Donoghue Cup winner to hang up his boots.

“Although he has won every accolade that you can possibly win now, I think there is still more left in him. He is a phenomenal athlete and has always given his best for the club no matter the circumstances,” he believes.

Looking at 2017, Reen agrees that a County Championship will enter the thought process but that a rest is what’s needed by all now in the team after a long year.

“Last year’s final was the week before Christmas and we had to turnaround straight away for the Mitchels game after. We have a small bit of time to enjoy ourselves now over Christmas at least. Being back in Division One of the County League is a big boost and we will think about the County Championship next year. A rest is what we need now though but we look forward to picking it up again in the New Year.”

For Aidan O’Mahony, who lines out with Munster in the Inter-provincial semi-finals this Saturday in Parnell Park, there have been few sweeter victories in his medal-laden career than this third O’Donoghue Cup.

“Probably (the most satisfying O’Donoghue Cup medal) because of who we beat today,” O’Mahony said. “We knew we would be up against it in playing the county and Munster champions. Few people outside of Rathmore gave us a chance of winning. A lot of what we heard was that we were only going to ‘give them a game’. We believed in ourselves though and you could see that belief out there on the pitch particularly in the second half in the way Mark Ryan and Dean Fitzgerald came into the game.

“We came here with a plan and while Crokes did open us up a few times we never lost sight of what we wanted to do today. Slow starts have been a problem for us but thankfully we got the goals at the right times to bring us back into it.

“There has been a lot of hurt for this club in this competition with Crokes in recent years. I have lost at least eight or nine finals myself to various teams in this so the significance of beating them in a final and now achieving a three-in-row should not be forgotten. If you want to win things in Kerry, you generally have to go to beat Dr Crokes to do that as has been proved again.” And the future, with Rathmore as well as Kerry? “My fear is that if I retire they’ll go on and win the County Championship,” he joked. “Seriously though I love the game and though my ankle and ribs are in a bad way right now it’s very hard to walk away after a day like today. I made my senior debut with the club in 1996 and when we won the Junior and Intermediate titles back-to-back in 1998 and 1999 you would think it’s all in front of you now in terms of something like a County Championship. It’s taken us 16 years to be talked about as contenders though and you have to remember that there are a lot of club and divisional teams out there getting stronger with each year.

“I’m very fortunate to have played with some players in this club who I consider better players than me and have won more than they have. It will be great to turn around in 15 years time and say I played with a Shane or Mark Ryan or a Dean Fitzgerald.”