O’Neill and Crokes gracious in defeat

IT’S a cruel coincidence that Harry O’Neill was also involved in the Crokes management team the last time the club lost an O’Donoghue Cup Final 15 years ago. He’s been involved in four East Kerry successes on the sideline at the same time, however, and the Crokes selector was gracious in defeat when he spoke after last Sunday’s loss to Rathmore.

“We really wanted to win to keep the momentum going but we came up against a very good Rathmore team today who deserved their win and we congratulate them on that as well as the three-in-a-row,” he said. While O’Neill didn’t wish to use the 10-week run of fixtures since early October as an excuse in the Crokes’ loss, he felt that Rathmore were just a bit fresher on the day.

“If you’re not up for a battle with a team like Rathmore you will be put to the sword. They got a platform around the middle today and had the forwards to punish us. There was a lot of hunger in their performance today and while we started well we had two goal chances early that would have boosted our confidence but we didn’t take them. They took theirs (goal chances) and that was the difference in the end,” the Crokes selector said. Indeed it’s hard for Crokes to have any complaints in not turning a four point lead with 10 minutes of the first-half and two Rathmore defenders on yellow cards into a more advantageous position at half-time.

“We seemed to go back into our shell a bit after their first goal and they got massive momentum from that goal. We hope that the lads will learn from this today and use it to good effect for the game against Corofin in February. We’ve still had a great year all round in winning three of the four Finals (County League, County Championship and Munster) that we have had as part of this run disappointed as we are not to have won East Kerry,” O’Neill said.

Of course, a lot of that Crokes success came as a response to defeat to Austin Stacks in the Senior Club Final but when asked about the availability of players from the club to either Eamon Fitzmaurice (Kerry seniors) or Jack O’Connor (Kerry U-21s) in the build-up to Corofin, O’Neill said it’s a decision the club will have to think about.

“It’s only really now we can start to think about our plans for the All-Ireland semi-final. That is an issue (release to inter-county teams) for us to deal with no doubt but something we hope to have sorted fairly soon.”