Baby and medal for Coughlan

IT was an exciting and busy weekend for Kilmurry Ibrickane star, Enda Coughlan. On Saturday, Maeve gave birth to their first baby, Abbey and on Sunday he played a key role in Kilmurry Ibrickane’s return to the top in Clare football, kicking four points in their victory over St Josephs at Cusack Park.
“It’s been an exciting weekend. The arrival of Abbey yesterday was fantastic,” said the Kilmurry-Ibrickane star, before paying tribute to everyone “for their support and good wishes”.
“Any time you win a final, it’s brilliant. We have been waiting for this performance all year. We showed glimpses in a lot of games but we never really played for the full 60 minutes. Today we played for the 60 minutes. We got a great start. They were in their first final and in that situation you want to settle early. We got a few early scores and ultimately that was the difference,” Coughlan said.
Asked about the team’s support play, which was excellent, he said, “All our players are comfortable on the ball and we like to play that way. Sometimes, when we play with the wind, our kicking isn’t great and we shoot from impossible angles. We talked a bit about that in the last few weeks and we got everything spot on today.”
They showed great hunger for victory in the final, which surprised some given the amount of success this group has had in recent years.
“Talking to a few people during the week, they were saying there have been a lot of lean years in Kilmurry Ibrickane. You’ve got to make hay when the sun shines. The majority of this team have played a lot of ball and are on the road a while. It’s important to win as much as you can. There are young lads coming in and hopefully they will take over from where we will leave off,” according to Coughlan, who is equally comfortable in defence or attack.
“There is great competition for places and that’s the way it has been and that’s why we have won as much as we have in the last few years. You are marking a quality player at training every night. They are fighting for their place and you are fighting for your place. When you have that competition in training, it’s great coming into a match,” he said.
Paying tribute to the management team of John Kennedy, Ger Lawlor, who was with them early in the year, and Joe Hurley, he singled out Patrick Murrihy for special mention.
“We owed Patrick Murrihy this one. He taught us all how to play football and if we ever owed anyone anything, we owed it to him. He is probably one of the only men in Clare who has been involved with every team from U-8 to senior and I am delighted for him.”
What next for Kilmurry Ibrickane? “The provincial competition is a new championship and a new ball game now. Every time you put on a Kilmurry jersey, there is expectancy. We will celebrate this win but we will return to training later in the week. The Munster competition will be tough but we will have a cut at it,” he concluded.