Brennan keen to lead Cratloe back to Kingdom

Mike Brennan must have initially thought that contesting county finals would be a regular occurrence after his introduction to Clare football in 2020 saw Cratloe soar to the championship decider against Kilmurry Ibrickane.
However, that was to be his and Cratloe’s last taste of senior final action, until now that is after defying the odds to lower three of last year’s final four on their return to Clare football’s greatest day.
“Let’s be honest, beating Éire Óg was a massive result for us. We definitely had belief as we knew as a group of players that we had it within us but I suppose it all depends on the day. I felt that we were very prepared going in, I mean Colm [Collins] is just top class so we knew what job we had to do and as best we could set up tactically and it definitely helped us.
“Granted, we had a poor start but the goal really settled us somewhat and at half-time we got to recoup and go again. We were motivated as we knew that we were still in it and there was a slight breeze there so we went out and I thought we performed very well and from there dug it out.
“Look it was a massive team performance, all over the field everyone stood up when needed at different points of the game.”
Contrast that to a deflating group defeat to Kildysart six weeks earlier at the same venue when reaching a county final seemed the furthest thing from Cratloe’s minds.
“Hands up, it was a poor performance against Kildysart but since then we’ve simply had to perform or we were out. It started with the Ennistymon game in which I felt that there were still mistakes in but it was much better.
That belief grew for the Kilmurry match and obviously went up to a new level against Éire Óg the last day.
“Look we have a great bunch of lads. Everyone puts everything into training and that’s where the mindset forms so as a group of players, we’re in a good mindset at the moment and hopefully leading up to the final we can build on that.”
Having played county Minor and Under 21 for Kerry along with winning two All-Ireland Junior titles for the Kingdom, Brennan is a vastly experienced and versatile player who feels that his switch to Cratloe has been hugely beneficial.
“I came from Churchill, a junior club in Kerry and to be honest it was a big step up. Don’t get me wrong, junior football in Kerry is strong but having said that, the big difference I found was that level of professionalism has been fantastic here. Every training you are expected to perform and there’s no messing. You’re there for an hour so you put the head down and there’s a real togetherness.
“I mean inter-county is fantastic and again there is a professional set-up but there’s nothing like club to really bond a squad together.
This is a dual club which is obviously very hard to manage but both codes are taken extremely seriously so while going out of the hurling wasn’t the plan, it has allowed us to focus on the football really and that in itself has also definitely helped us.”
While his brothers also played hurling for Kerry, Mike isn’t about to become a dual player anytime soon it seems as his full focus is on football and more pertinently Sunday’s showdown with St Breckan’s.
The momentum now has really been building so hopefully we can get over the line on Sunday. I think we’ve more than proven ourselves regarding age, fitness and desire as the last day we went toe-to-toe with the champions for a full 80 minutes which would taken its toll on any team.
“St Breckan’s are a much different team and it’s up to ourselves to focus on that and counteract it as best we can.
“It’s up to ourselves really to perform and get the best out of ourselves on the biggest day of all. Experience won’t be an issue anyway so hopefully it will be enough to be on the right side of the final result this time around.”