‘To be honest, we have a lot of faith in these young lads’

Despite the large injection of youth over the past few years, there is a mutually beneficial respect and bond between Ennistymon’s players and management that has seen the stars align to reach only the club’s second ever senior decider.

Getting the management band back together from that 2018 debut decider has been the work of manager Mark Shanahan who along with the likes of Brendan Rouine and coach Ger Quinlan have admirably opted to grasp the nettle and blood as many of their underage stars as possible.

That policy was perhaps was justified by the almost incredulous feats of defiance in their epic semi-final victory over Kilmurry Ibrickane that went all the way to extra-time and penalties.

“There is probably no easy way of summing that game up but it’s only in tests like that that you really see the character of players.” admitted Shanahan who is in his third stint as manager of his native club.

“Kilmurry Ibrickane threw everything at us and played well on the day but it was those characteristics of resilience, fight and belief that were essential for us to keep in the game and eventually come out on top.

“From watching it back, even the body language was really positive throughout so all those admirable traits are not something that you can easily develop in a group and therefore obviously as a management, we were delighted to see them emerge.

“To be totally honest, we have a lot of faith in those young lads, we have a lot of faith in their steel, their character and their make-up. I know underage is different but they have been fair performers and have played in a lot of big games so they’re cool customers.

“Five of them were on that CBS [Ennistymon] team that got to the All-Ireland Final so they’re young but yet they have quite a bit of experience and that faith is there from our side to hopefully see that blossom further at senior level.”

Under Shanahan’s guidance, blossoming was not an issue in Ennistymon’s first final in 2018 either but shooting efficiency was as missed goal chances proved detrimental to their hopes of a breakthrough against St Joseph’s Miltown [0-14 to 0-8].

Shanahan holds more of a no regrets mantra now as he feels it’s about leaving everything on the field in pursuit of the Jack Daly dream.

“What we learned from 2018 is that when opportunity knocks, you have to take advantage of it. But we aren’t reflecting on 2018 or even referencing it, what we’re really focusing in on is the same approach we have taken to every game and that is to get as much out of each training and have as much craic as we can.

“It’s about ticking as many boxes as we can ahead of every match so that we can hopefully reach the ceiling in every game and get the max out of what we have.

“It’s really about getting our own house in order. That’s not to dismiss our opponent because obviously Éire Óg are worthy favourites. They were definitely the best team in the county last year and so far this year they have really backed that up.

“However, focusing on ourselves has served us well so far this year and it’s about trying to hit those high notes of performance again on Sunday and see where it takes us.
“After that, we’re either good enough or we’re not.”