O’Neill: It’s the final everyone wanted

CROKES boss Harry O’Neill said yesterday that meeting UCC in the Munster club final was “probably the final everyone wanted”, given two of his players – Daithí Casey and Johnny Buckley – won Cork championship medals with the College earlier this season.

“It was probably the final everyone wanted, the one that was scripted,” O’Neill said.

“I’m delighted we’ll be up against them, it’ll be Cork-Kerry but we’ll be very wary of what happened to us against Nemo last year.

“UCC have been gaining momentum all year, winning the Sigerson and a county title. You could compare them to a divisional team and the one thing you’d say about a divisional team is that you need to catch them early, but we’re getting UCC in a Munster final after a lot of games.

“We’ll have to keep Johnny and Daithí focused on the job at hand. We’re lucky that the lads here have built up a great thing in the dressing-room, so for Johnny and Daithí hopefully the Cork county final is a little bit distant. Once that was over they knew they’d be with us and driving on.

“There’ll be a bit of hype about them but they’re able for that. There was hype about them before the county final in Kerry, having won in Cork, but you know something? It might drive them on to play even better.”

O’Neill paid tribute to Kerry stars Eoin Brosnan and Colm Cooper for their part in defeating Kilmurry.

“At that level, when you’re in that situation, that’s when you want your big players to stand up and be counted.

“in the first half Eoin (Brosnan) was sitting back a bit and wasn’t in the game, and Enda Coughlan caused us problems. We pushed Eoin up on him in the second half.

“Eoin, Colm (Cooper), that’s when you want your big-name guys to stand up, and all the lads worked hard, turning the ball over and so on.”

The Kilmurry-Ibrickane coach, John Kennedy, was equally forthright.

“We’re very proud of our lads and we worked to the very end,” said Kennedy. “We needed another point to kill it off when we were three up, because another point for the opposition and they’re back in it. We had a chance.”