Romance not in script as Kilmurry put Saints to sword

SOMETIMES, it seems, you can have your cake and eat it. Kilmurry Ibrickane didn’t just claim a county title yesterday – their third in four attempts — they did so on the back of one of those once-in-a-lifetime team performances when everything falls into place.

If there was a GAA version of Roy of the Rovers, this would be the template but with one difference – it wasn’t an individual — it was the entire St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield’s panel that were trying to win the Jack Daly Cup.

Impressive as Kilmurry were, however, their performance gave little heed to the romance of an occasion that saw their opponents, better known as a hurling power, featuring in a first senior football decider in 113 years.

St Joseph’s had ventured this far on the back of a season darkened by the untimely death of their team-mate Niall White and a group campaign which at one point threatened to steer them towards relegation rather than this regal setting.

Their defeat of Doonbeg in the quarter-final was a result that blew the hinges off the championship and, with Kilmurry scraping past Cooraclare and Cratloe in the last eight and final four, an intriguing canvas lay waiting.

Or so everyone thought.

Alas, the colour began to drain from the occasion all too quickly. Enda Coughlan had Kilmurry in front after just 30 seconds and the rest of the half amounted to little more than an inexorable slide towards an inevitable conclusion.

Ibrickane were cut-throat in the first 10 minutes going four points to the good. Their first mistake was a wide kicked by Noel Downes at the end of that spell.

Even then, with 50 minutes to play, the alarm bells were ringing in the Doora-Barefield dugout. Coughlan’s first point had been scored after an unchallenged run through the defence and Ian McInerney claimed the follow-up without a defender in sight.

That said, it was clinical and deadly football, summed up by their fifth score after 13 minutes when Michael O’Dwyer and Downes set up Stephen Moloney for a point fashioned by intelligent movement.

There was little or nothing in the way of solace for St Joseph’s and the sum total of their attacking efforts in that half was highlighted by a spilled pass, a miscued shot and a kick over one of the sidelines. It was dispiriting stuff and the only saving grace for them was the inevitable decrease in pace.

Ibrickane added just two more points to their half-dozen in the second quarter but were denied a goal when Michael O’Dwyer’s snapshot was directed straight into the midriff of former Kerry keeper Declan O’Keeffe.

Three minutes later and a similarly instinctive swing of the foot off the floor by Alan O’Neill represented Doora-Barefield’s best chance but the shot flashed by the post.

That left it 0-8 to 0-0 at the interval and at that point Doora-Barefield faced the unenviable, if still unlikely, prospect of being the first side since Kilmurry-Ibrickane in 1924 to finish a Clare senior football final without a registered score.

It took another three minutes and 20 seconds for that embarrassing possibility to be bypassed thanks to Colm Mullen’s pointed free and the substitute’s second effort, deep in stoppage time, would be his side’s second from play.

Kilmurry were already in celebratory mode. Their last score came moments before from man of the match Ian McInerney whose award was won for his dead-ball accuracy as much as his contribution from open play.

McInerney slotted five points from frees, every one of them laser-like efforts. Johnny Daly and Coughlan added a pair apiece to leave Ibrickane with a nine-from-nine balance sheet from frees.

Further proof of what was, for them, a perfect day.

Scorers for Kilmurry-Ibrickane: I McInerney 0-8 (5fs), E Coughlan 0-4 (2fs), J Daly 0-2fs, S Hickey, S Moloney, N Downes 0-1 each.

Scorers for St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield: C Mullen (1f), D O’Brien (2fs) 0-2 each, E Lyons 0-1.

KILMURRY-IBRICKANE: P O’Dwyer Jr; S Hickey, D Hickey, M McMahon; D Callinan, E Talty, I McInerney; P O’Connor, P O’Dwyer; M McCarthy, M Hogan, S Moloney; N Downes, M O’Dwyer, E Coughlan.

Subs: J Daly for Downes (42), N Hickey for Moloney (44), O O’Dwyer for M O’Dwyer (52), T Lernihan for Callinan (53), S Lynch for Hogan (55).

ST JOSEPH’S DOORA-BAREFIELD: D O’Keeffe; G Fannin, S Collins, D Kennedy; G Lyons, K Dilleen, G O’Sullivan; M Rafferty, A O’Neill; P Dullaghan, S Flynn, D O’Brien; E Lyons, C O’Sullivan, I Whyte.

Subs: C Mullen for Kennedy (30), M Hallinan for Rafferty (30), C O’Brien for Dullaghan (38), C Duggan for Whyte (55).

Referee: P Cosgrove (Corofin).