‘Focus the key’ for battle-hardened Cloyne raiders

FOR Cloyne senior hurling manager Sean Motherway, keeping the focus this week is the big issue. The men in red and black are in their third consecutive final, so novelty isn’t an issue. Concentration is.

“The big challenge is keeping the lads focused from a hurling point of view, keeping the whole thing low key” says Motherway.

“A lot of what goes on will be out of their control, like talk around the town, but we’ll try to keep it as low key as possible. Getting back to a third final in a row is a marvellous achievement, but losing a third final in a row is unthinkable, really.”

It was all new to Cloyne in 2004, when Na Piarsaigh beat them in the decider.

“Going back to that game, the problem there was probably the fact that it was our first final and the problems that come with that. Against Newtown last year we probably just weren’t good enough on the day. This year we hope we’ve learned from the last two finals.”

Part of that learning process is taking the lessons of those two losses on board, as Motherway says. “We looked at the tapes of the two finals, and if you want to be really objective and critical, we didn’t deserve to win either game because we didn’t perform. Getting to the final is great, but you have to do the nuts and bolts on the day.

“Against Piarsaigh you had the Setanta factor, they had had a bereavement a few nights beforehand and all of that probably galvanised them. They’re not excuses, that’s what happened.

“Last year we didn’t perform. I know we hate to say it, but it was as good as over by half-time. We didn’t perform and we were fighting an uphill battle in the second-half. Beating Newtown last Sunday was a monkey off our back, but it won’t make the game against Erin’s Own any easier. We beat Newtown two years ago in the semi-final, so we have no right to think just because we beat them that we’ll win the final.”

This year Cloyne have been scoring a lot of goals. Is that a conscious aim in each game?

“It is, and we feel it’s not an unrealistic target — we’ve been good to get goals, it’s not like we’ve been trying to get them and been unsuccessful. We’ve got goals in every game, and against Newtown you’d expect them to tack on 17, 18, 19 points, so we felt that we’d have to get goals to beat them while keeping them from scoring.

“Thankfully, that’s how it worked out. We had a lot of ball in the first-half — and a lot of wides — the goal settled us down and allowed us to add a few points. The second goal, as anyone could see, was vital — they got a run on us, with three or four points without reply and our goal knocked the stuffing out of them to a certain extent and gave us something to drive on from.

“It’s not as if goals are an obsession — last Sunday was probably a different situation because if the chance arose we’d go for goal. If we break through in the half-forward line we’ll go for goal but we’re taking our points as well. We scored 15 points against Midleton and 16 points against the Glen.”

Which brings us neatly to Sunday’s opponents. Motherway acknowledges the quality in Glounthaune.

“Any team that gets to a final is a good one, and at the start of every year when people are picking their favourites Erin’s Own are always there. They’ve had unprecedented success at minor and U-21 level, winning counties in both grades, and they have household names playing, players involved with Cork. It’ll be a huge test for us.”

This year Cloyne have mixed it up a little, in both training and positioning; as Motherway says, it’s all part of keeping the team fresh.

“Historically we started in January and this year we gave the lads more time to themselves, we started in February. We made a conscious decision to stay out of the field and the Blitz gym in Midleton were very good to us, we trained there for six or eight weeks and stayed out of the muck.

“Moving Killian Cronin, probably the best club full-back in Cork, out to centre-back was a result of Maurice Cahill getting injured before the Midleton game. We tried Killian at centre-back and it’s like he’s playing there all his life. “We’re not taking any great credit for those things, they just happened and they’ve worked out for us this year. In previous years we’ve had 15 or 16 and the team picked itself; against Newtown we had three lads on the line who played in county finals, so we’ve a little strength in depth that we haven’t always had.”

Talking of strength in depth, the promotion of Cronin and Conor Cusack was another endorsement of Cloyne’s recent success.

“It was strange, we were used to being without Diarmuid and Donal Og but this year Killian and Conor were also away. It was great recognition for the club and the two lads benefited hugely. They came back fitter and leaner and better hurlers, even though obviously they were good enough to get on the panel in the first place.

“In terms of the future a victory on Sunday would do a huge amount of juveniles and for the whole club.”