No complaints from Browne

Crusheen manager Michael Browne made no secret of his disappointment. “We are devastated but, in the end, we can have no complaints, the better team won and that’s it,” he said moments after the final whistle at Thurles on Sunday.
“With eight minutes to go, we were level but, at the end of the day, maybe the youth came through. They had the slightly younger team and that, with the quick turnaround, the heavier conditions and so on. It looked good early in the second half. They had missed a couple of scoring chances and a few frees, which they never do. You couldn’t but begin to think that maybe it was going to work out for us but in that last eight or nine minutes they were outstanding. They hurled us all over the pitch and were on top in every area. What can you say but they were better when they needed to be. Younger players, younger feet, fresher legs. They just had that bit. We were out on our feet at the end. We had battled hard all through,” he said.
Despite his disappointment, he was full of praise for his charges. “I can’t let the occasion go without paying huge tribute to this Crusheen team.  They have come through two campaigns in Clare, putting county titles back to back, having never won one before that. This was icing on the cake but when you get there you want to win it if you can. This was a huge day for Crusheen, a huge day for our parish and we are all very disappointed that we couldn’t have done it. They are a superb team, a great bunch of lads. They worked very hard on the pitch as you saw and they do the same off the pitch. On the day, we met a team that was slightly fresher, slightly faster and slightly sharper in those last few minutes. You have to take your beatings as well as your victories,” he said.
“This team has been around for a while and maybe that’s part of what caused the problem at the end. Some of them have a lot of mileage on the clock, even the younger lads have been playing senior hurling since they were 16. They have been there or thereabouts since 2005 or 2006 when Stephen Cunningham and all the boys that worked with them in that period, bringing them to a county final,” Browne acknowledged  before adding “they will be back and will be a strong force in Clare again.”
Asked if he felt Crusheen should have been awarded a penalty in the first half, he refused to criticise the match official. “At this time of the year you are not surprised at anything. It’s very difficult for referees and I am not going to criticise the referee here. They have a job to do as well and it wasn’t easy. There were a few things I would wonder about but sometimes when you look at them on DVD afterwards, you realise that the referee was right,” was his reply.
The Crusheen manager was fulsome in his praise for the new Munster champions. “We must pay tribute to Na Piarsaigh, a great team, on a great victory. They showed great strength and great character when they needed it and you can’t take from that and we wish them well in the rest of the competition,” Browne concluded.