Kilmurry to get up and running

CAN Kilkee take advantage of Kilmurry Ibrickane’s managerial uncertainty and pick up a crucial opening championship win this weekend? Kilkee will definitely be hoping to pick up any advantage they can glean from Clare manager Micheál McDermott’s decision to step down from his club post last Tuesday week. While the Clare manager hadn’t formally been ratified at the Kilmurry Ibrickane AGM, he had returned to the job in real terms.

“After chatting to Gerard Talty, we had a good discussion about plans for the year, I felt ‘no’, it would be a case of letting somebody else take over the reins for the year. It’s up to the club now to find somebody to do that,” McDermott told The Clare Champion last week.
He had planned to let a couple of selectors take control of Kilmurry in the short-term, while he prepared Clare for the opening All-Ireland qualifier on June 26.
“I would have had a couple of guys that would help out in running the club so I could commit to one night a week to the club and their games at the weekend. But the full emphasis has to be on Clare for this year,” he said.
However, at the time of writing this preview, Kilmurry had yet to appoint a new management team. The effect could be two-fold; either the uncertainty will unite the Clare and Munster champions or it could lead to a loss of focus. Still, with footballers like Declan Callinan, Martin McMahon, Peter O’Dwyer and Johnny Daly in their ranks, Kilmurry won’t lack calmness and leadership against Kilkee.
The Seasiders are struggling in the Cusack Cup, having picked up five points from their games to date. Generally, though, their league and championship form doesn’t add up. Kilkee are capable of turning it on in championship when their league form might suggest anything but.
Men like David Russell, Gearóid Lynch, Darragh Kelly, Michael O’Shea and Kevin Larkin ensure that the 2009 county finalists still have the armoury to produce a big hour’s football.
Predicting this result is tricky but Kilmurry could be gelled together by their situation and that might be enough to focus them and pull them over the line.
If both teams play anywhere near their optimum, this could be the game of the weekend.

Liscannor v Miltown, St Joseph’s
LISCANNOR’S defeat of Cooraclare in their last Cusack Cup game came at the perfect time. Defeat would have relegated them to Garry Cup, while the win means that they could escape demotion. Even if they don’t, winning that game set Liscannor up nicely for this weekend’s game against Miltown. Although short of a number or regulars, St Joseph’s recorded an impressive win away to Clondegad to given themselves a morale boost, similar to Liscannor.
Liscannor manager Martin Guerin is focusing purely on Miltown and is hopeful that his team’s form has picked up at the right time.
“It would be foolish to be thinking past the first game. That’s going to be a real battle against our neighbours who beat us in the Cusack Cup but we’ll give it 110% and hopefully the result will be in our favour,” the former Liscannor footballer said.
“Everybody seems to think that this is the group of death but at the same time people would fancy Kilmurry and Kilkee to come out of the group. But you have to take every game as it comes and just see what happens,” he added.
His Miltown counterpart, Michael Neylon feels that a win this weekend would set his team up for a good eight weeks, before the second round of the championship on August 7.
“The focus from the beginning would always have been to try and get off to a good start, particularly given there’s a lay-off of eight weeks. It’s a long time to dwell on a defeat,” he reflected.
“There’s a lot to play for in the group and there’s local derbies all round. Liscannor and ourselves were actually linked up for a 21 campaign some years back,” the Miltown manager noted.
Miltown have a solid goalkeeper in Conor O’Loughlin and good defenders in Enda Malone and Gordon Kelly, if he is fit to play. His brother, Graham, is very unlikely to have recovered from an arm injury in time.
Elsewhere, they will need big performances from Dessie Molohan if he is recovered from injury, Seán Meade, Micheál Malone and Eoin Curtin if they are to get the better of Liscannor.
The 2002 and 2008 county finalists will once again turn to players like Brian and Niall Considine, Kieran Considine, Ronan Slattery, Alan Clohessy and Darragh Blake to steer them to what should be a narrow victory.