Champions knuckle down

CRUSHEEN feel strongly about representing Clare and they intend to let neither club nor county down.
That’s the message from team boss Michael Browne this week as they complete their preparations for Sunday’s Munster Club Championship quarter-final clash with Kilmallock from Limerick at Cusack Park where the throw-in will be at 2pm.
“It’s a huge honour to represent your county and it’s also very big for our club to be able to play on such a big stage,” according to Browne. “We returned to training on the Wednesday after our Clare final win and we trained on Friday and again on Sunday. This is a first for Crusheen and it is a big honour. It’s a great honour to look outside the county and it gives lads a bit more freedom to go out and show what they can do,” the Crusheen coach added.
Browne and his fellow selectors, Gerry Kearney, Eddie Fitzgibbon and Niall Griffin, will have a full squad from which to select their starting team.
“We lost John Brigdale and Pat Vaughan in the county final but thankfully, they returned to training over the weekend,” Browne confirmed.
For the county final, Paddy Meaney was unlucky not to get a spot in the starting line-up but he came into the action in the second half and contributed 1-1. He will be pressing strongly for a place in the starting line-up this week.
Browne saw Sunday’s opponents in action in a challenge game in Sixmilebridge last week when they played and beat Galway finalists Clarinbridge.
“Watching them in a challenge is not the best as you need to see a team in competitive ties but we know that they are a good team. They have a very strong half-back line and two strong midfielders while, depending on where they play Andrew O’Shaughnessy, they have a strong half or full-forward line. They have won a number of U-21 titles in recent times. They were awesome in last week’s challenge, particularly in the first half but then Clarinbridge didn’t play well and were short three of their stronger players. That said, Kilmallock were brilliant in the first half, really dominant and they moved the ball rapidly, not a hundred miles away from Cratloe’s style,” he said.
In last week’s game, O’Shaughnessy played at centre-forward but in many of the Limerick championship games this year, he was at full-forward.
Gavin O’Mahoney has been impressive at underage level for Limerick in recent years and he is expected to be at full-back on Sunday.
Crusheen have shown throughout the Clare campaign that they have a very strong defence and will again be looking to their backs to lay the foundation for another win. Their much criticised forward line answered thecritics when scoring 2-13 in the county final win over Cratloe.
It will be interesting to see what plan Kilmallock manager former Clare manager Tony Considine, will have to get past Cathal and Cian Dillon and Ciarán O’Doherty, the Crusheen half-back trio, who were outstanding in the county final. If Kilmallock are to win, they will have to get the upperhand on this trio.
Understandably, there is some concern amongst Clare followers as to how Crusheen will do given the celebrations that followed their inaugural county final success.
“We took our few days and everyone enjoyed themselves. It was great for the parish, the wives, girlfriends, past players and supporters. It was really important that the outpouring of emotion was allowed to happen but by Tuesday and Wednesday, lads were back to work and we were back to training on Wednesday evening,” Browne explained.
The Clare champions’ senior team boss readily acknowledged that it ss a huge weekend for the club as they play the junior A final on Saturday  against Newmarket at Clarecastle at 4.30pm).
“It’s fantastic for a small club to be in both the senior and junior finals, to have a pool of players to contest both is wonderful. It’s great to have such huge numbers of players involved at this time of year,” he said.
The Dillon brothers, the Brigdales, the Meaneys, Pat Vaughan, Fergus Kennedy, Conor O’Donnell and team captain Gerry O’Grady have the ability to trouble any opposition and if they can reproduce the form they showed in winning the Clare title then they have an excellent chance of making a winning debut in Munster and qualifying for a provincial semi-final date against the Tipperary champions two weeks’ later.