Eddie delighted

CARNEW EMMETS manager Eddie Brennan was a relieved man after the final whistle in Joule Park Aughrim after he had watched his charges finish like a storm to bring the Minor ‘A’ hurling championship home to the Wexford border after a replay with a gallant Avondale/Parnells outfit.

‘Four massive games, we played them twice in the league, one was a draw and we won by a point the other day,’ he said.

John Doyle’s late goal was a considerable nail in the Avondale/ Parnells coffin. He had had a few chances in the first half, but they hadn’t gone in for him. He took his late opportunity with aplomb.

‘That’s John. They didn’t come for him in the first half, he had a few chances, but we told him to just keep plugging away and they’ll come, and they did come,’ said Eddie.

How did Brennan see the game going from his point of view?

‘I suppose it was a couple of breaks at the end, it was touch and go up to that. I knew at halftime that we were playing much better than we were the last day, there was nothing to say to them at half-time only to keep it going.

‘They were relying on frees, the last day we didn’t score from the 36th minute so we knew that if we could keep the scoreboard ticking over today that we’d be there or thereabouts, and we did that,’ he said.

Eoin Kavanagh picked up the Man of the Match award for a splendid performance at centre half back. Eddie Brennan says the whole team performed well.

‘Eoin is brilliant, and I thought there were loads of candidates. Conor Wafer was unreal, Tommy (Collins) at full-back, he’s the most improved hurler I’ve ever seen, Owen Young, John Young and Ryan (Guilfoyle) in the middle of the field, Ryan was out here in the corner near the end battling away. Look, you’d give it to the lot of them but Eoin has the polish, of course, he took a few balls out of the sky, he never wasted a ball, he gives a perfect ball. Look, these guys really bought into this at the start of the year, we (the management team) just had to turn up. Hopefully we’ll get a few Seniors out of this team,’ he said.

Eddie Brennan was very positive about the format of the Minor hurling championship in 2018.

‘It was a great league this year, because it was only the top two who went into the ‘A’ final, so every game was a championship final. That was great. We craped through a lot of games going through the year, I can tell you. We scraped through them all to be fair.

‘I think it was a great idea