Captain says focus now is on Croker and All-Ireland
Last month near neighbours Effin claimed the Munster Club IHC title and yesterday the North Cork town collected provincial junior honours in style.
“We’ll celebrate this now, take a well-earned break for the Christmas and be back fresh for January,” said a delighted Mervyn Gammell following yesterday’s win over Cappamore in Mallow.
“Cappamore were a fine side with some very good players. It was nip-and-tuck for a long time and they were well in it at half-time. We had to up the work-rate, that was the first priority, and in fairness to us I think we put in a good shift in the second half and the scores came a lot easier after that.
“Our young fellas stood up again today and got some savage scores in the second half.” Most impressive of all those youngsters is corner-forward James O’Brien who hit 1-5 and set up numerous scores
Gammell isn’t surprised. “He’s been doing that all year for us. He’s got an unmerciful tally in the championship so far, something around 6-35. He is only about 17 but they’re all so level-headed, those young fellas, on top of fresh legs, which makes an awful difference. They deserve this success; we’ve put in a huge effort all year, though I’m sure Cappamore would say the same thing.”
O’Brien was also all smiles. “It is a great feeling. At the start of the year, when we met up, we wanted to go as far as we could but we just took it game by game and now we’re Munster champions. Hopefully now we can finish it off with an All-Ireland title. Wouldn’t it be great if both Effin and ourselves made it to the final, a day out in Croke Park for the two of us?”
That too was in the thinking of inspirational Charleville captain Daniel O’Flynn, who, along with younger brother Colm had played such a massive part in lifting the Cork champions when most needed.
“That was a tough game! They came at us hell-for-leather for the first 10 minutes of the second half, I thought we were in serious trouble. We had actually managed to start well today, for a change, but left them back into it but as usual though we finished strongly. It’s great, it’s given the whole town a buzz. Christmas was looking like it was going to be hard for a lot of people but this makes it a little easier. For such a small pocket, the success that ourselves and Effin have had this year, Newtown over the last few years, Kilfinane and Ardpatrick two years ago — it must be something in the waters around here! Please God now ourselves and Effin can have a date in Croke Park in February. That would be a huge boost to the whole area.”
