Experience Cross big weapon, says Clarke
Whether hurling or football, the famed Cork city club was way ahead of the pack, a phenomenal seven football titles in this ultra-competitive championship between 1973 and 2003.
In recent years, however, a new club have emerged, with an even more impressive strike-rate.
In 1996, after a lapse of 10 years, Crossmaglen Rangers won the Armagh senior football title. With the exception of 2009, they have won that championship every year since then.
But that’s not all. Nine times Cross have won the Ulster title, five times crowned All-Ireland champions. Tomorrow they will be trying to add to that tally against Garrycastle.
Favourites? You bet they are. But, says Jamie Clarke, honoured last week as Ulster AIB Provincial Player of the Year for 2011, Cross themselves are taking nothing for granted.
“We’re always going to get that favourites’ tag going into the All-Ireland final once a team is there year after year but I think we’ve learned from 2009 that Cross can actually lose finals,” he said.
“We can’t go in with the mentality that we’re in another final and we’re going to walk it — that’s not the case. There’s an hour’s football to be played yet and I think we can even learn from the last day out that if we take our eye off the ball for one second that it can easily go past you.”
That was against Dr Croke’s of Killarney and Kerry, a game where Cross trailed by 1-5 to 0-1 after 20 minutes but recovered to actually take the lead in the third quarter, then looked dead and buried again with only minutes to go, their captain red-carded (Stephen Kernan misses this game), game tied and Crokes with their tails up. And still they dug out the win.
Character? In spades, yes, but then they have all those winning memories on which they can draw, starting with last year, when they won their fifth title.
“A lot of the young boys have come on to the scene now and growing up they’ve looked at the likes of Francie Bellew and Oisín McConville consistently winning back-to-back county championships. They’re not used to getting beat and there’s a winning mentality there. I think the same applies in Kilkenny, or Kerry at county level, and I think we just bring it through year after year and we just manage to keep fighting and there’s a real attitude in Cross never to quit.”
Given such an attitude, even against such a team as Dr Croke’s and even in such a dire situation as they found themselves in that semi-final, Cross weren’t going to wilt.
“Most of the lads turned to last year’s semi-final where we were in the same position against Kilmacud Crokes. Things weren’t going well and only for Mickey’s [McNamee] goal we would have been in real trouble going in at half-time.
It sets things up nicely then for Saturday and this game against Garrycastle, who themselves had a good semi-final win over St Brigid’s of Roscommon, the side Cross beat to win last year’s final.
“We’ve watched a few videos of Garrycastle and they’re quite similar to St Brigid’s, they’re big around the middle.
“We are expecting the same sort of game as against St Brigid’s last year. Obviously it’s their first final, they’re going to have great support there.
“It’s an All-Ireland final, everyone’s going to want to win it but hopefully after winning last year’s final we can take confidence from that.
“A lot of the younger boys will be more confident and more used to Croke Park on the big day so hopefully that will stand to us.”
Hopefully? Teams such as Crossmaglen don’t live in hope.
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