JOINT manager Gerry O’Connor admitted to being speechless. Standing in the middle of Cusack Park as he watched Conor McGrath accept the Munster cup, the Éire Óg clubman was the recipient of congratulations from fans, who cheered wildly as McGrath raised the trophy aloft.
O’Connor had no doubt that it was fantastic to win it. “We knew we were going to get an unbelievable battle from Tipperary. We knew what they were capable of and they didn’t disappoint us.
“I am so glad that our lads realised all week that they were going to get a battle like this. It was a savage, tense game of hurling,” he added.
He agreed that both sides had experienced similar ups and downs during the course of the final. “We came out in the first half and we had a lot of wides. They had wide after wide in the second half. Their goal was a huge turning point for them,” he said.
“I am not really sure who got our goal but I think it was Niall Arthur who scored but no better man than Arthur to stick a goal away. Look, we are speechless now,” he said, as the congratulatory claps on the back continued.
He admitted, “It was worrying during the game. We were dominating in the middle third of the field. We said all day that things will happen, they will go wrong and go right but we said to them ‘stick to the game plan and keep battling’. They did that and it paid off.”
Had he given up hope of victory as the game went into injury time?
“You never give up. You can’t give up. I have been waiting 20 years to beat Tipperary in a Munster final and it’s a great feeling.
“We knew in the back of our minds that we had the players capable of winning this. There are times when the pressure gets to you, it gets to the players. You try and protect them as best you can and it’s tough going.”
Before concluding and heading off to join his fellow backroom team members and the players, he took time to pay tribute to the Clare supporters. “The support was brilliant and gave us a great surge in the second half,” he concluded.

‘Our motto all year has been support play’

CLARE U-21 trainer Paul Kinnerk hadn’t given up hope of victory as Wednesday’s game moved towards the final whistle. He knew they would have a final kick “but the question was what we were going to do with it and, thankfully, we were effective with it,” he said.
He watched the game from high up in the commentary box over the stand. “I was more depressed with the commentary from beside me,” he replied when I asked if he had given up hope of victory. He wasn’t surprised that Niall Arthur scored the match-winning goal.
“Niall is a finisher, it’s as simple as that. That’s what he does. All he needs is a sniff. Our motto all year has been the support play, drawing the man and popping it in, create the overlap. Cathal [McInerney] had the presence of mind to find Niall and he was as cool as a breeze finishing it,” the Limerick senior footballer said.
For Kinnerk, this win “is some bit of consolation after the way Galway beat us last year in the minor championship. We were beaten in a similar fashion by Galway and it’s nice to be on the other end of it now.”
He acknowledged, “We could have been three or four points up at half-time. It was just a matter of inches with many of those efforts. On this occasion, they just went to the wrong side of the posts.
“We knew as long as we didn’t panic we would be there or thereabouts and that’s the way it turned out. We were creating the chances. We had the lion’s share of possession. Sometimes you have days where the radar is just off. Today was one of those days but thankfully we had a small bit in hand to come out on the right side,” he said.
He agreed, “We were fortunate from that point of view. There are not too many days you can go out and shoot so many wides and live to tell the tale. We were able to do that.”
A key ingredient with this Clare side is that “the lads have a winning mentality. Most of these lads know how to win. A lot of other teams would have died but not these lads. They are a credit to everyone. I have never been as proud of a group of young fellas and I would love to be involved with them for the rest of their careers,” he concluded.