Ryan eyes provincial triumph

APART from winning the game Sarsfields created their own bit of history by winning their first AIB Munster Club championship game at Páirc Ui Chaoimh yesterday.

“We have our sights set on winning this Munster Club championship,” said midfielder Pat Ryan. “We want to do both ourselves and our county proud and bring the title back to Cork.

“To be fair to Clonlara they went into the game off the back of winning their county final just seven days ago and I’m certain they celebrated that well into the middle of the week which didn’t make today’s match any easier for them. Having said that we had a job to do and we did it very well. We knew going into the game that if we could match them for effort our hurling would be more than good enough to see us through. And that’s the way it panned out.

“On a personal level I’ve a lot of years put into perfecting my free taking and it was pleasing to see them go over today. Another day I might not be so lucky.”

Team mentor Teddy McCarthy said that even allowing for the weakness of the opposition, it was a splendid display by his team and one which augurs well for the rest of the campaign.

“Neither side had seen the other play so it was difficult to know what to expect,’’ said the dual All-Ireland medal winner. “We weren’t going to take any chances with them and it was our plan to score early and often and that’s how it worked out for us.

“I thought Pat Ryan’s contribution was immense. He’s an outstanding club man and when he plans well everyone else seems to also. It was an excellent team performance and one I hope we can improve on because it’s going to get tougher the longer we stay in the competition.”

Clonlara manager Jim Gully was reasonably happy with the performance of his charges given that it was only a week ago they had won the Clare title for the first time in 89 years.

“Nothing can take from last week’s county win,” said Gully. “It was one of the greatest days in my career and I’m due the other selectors will say the same. Today, I knew coming down it was going to be difficult. You say yourself we were in contention for most of the opening half but we ran out of energy in the second and were a well beaten team at the finish.”