Captain O’Flaherty lauds squad in setting up final opportunity
By James Hayden
Nenagh Ormond captain Kevin O’Flaherty was thrilled to overcome the challenge of Blackrock College in an absorbing AIL Division 1A Promotion Play-off semi-final in New Ormond Park on Saturday afternoon.
Paying tribute to the opposition, O’Flaherty said both Nenagh and Blackrock have crossed swords on many occasions in recent years and are no strangers to playing each other.
“We've had many battles with Blackrock down through the years and it's been nip and tuck every time,” he began.
“It’s been three points; four points, and we've been on the losing end of that in Blackrock too at times and so we knew obviously home advantage was massive for us today.
“Our support is so vocal when we're here, but we were really tuned in today.
“We got our analysis of ‘Rock done early in the week and we just focused in from Tuesday it was all about us getting the bodies right and just coming out and being really, really physical, because we knew eighty minutes, if you're physical, if you get go forward ball, our back line will rip anyone apart so that as a pack that's where we wanted to go, we wanted to give the backs a platform.”
The Nenagh skipper agreed his side had to focus on continually bringing tempo to the game in order to keep Blackrock on the back foot.
“They had a very physical game the last day out against Wesley and we could see that. We knew that if we could get physical early, and we didn't necessarily do it in the first half, then in the second half we kind of reassessed. We were like, okay, we need to just pick and go, we need to just bring tempo,” Kevin added.
O’Flaherty also agreed that Nenagh were at their best when playing free-flowing rugby and that they had full confidence in their ability to navigate their way through any game.
“We are at our best when we play our free-flowing rugby and just treat the game as another match,” he revealed.
“Obviously, it’s a semi-final and you have to take the scores when you need to but you have to take some risks as well and thankfully those risks worked out.
“Conor McMahon is a super kicker and I could have picked to kick from the penalty in the corner and he probably would have slotted it over but there are times in games where you need to take that risk and we felt that it was coming”.
Nenagh’s second row also agreed that Mikey Doran’s try just before the break was a crucial score in the game.
“Without a doubt it's like any game like if you get a score before half-time, or if they get a yellow card, they're massive moments in the game,” he continued.
“So, once we went in two points down, we knew that we had the fitness we knew that our bench was ready and that every single one of our bench was capable of starting and that they would make an impact.”
Turning to the challenge of UCC in the final next Saturday, the captain agreed that these are indeed halcyon days for the Nenagh Ormond club.
“I've been playing for Nenagh since I was eighteen and obviously the appeal of 1A rugby is there. People move on to other clubs to try and achieve it but to achieve it with Nenagh would be massive. We have eighty minutes to go, and we are going to give our all to try and achieve it,” the Nenagh captain concluded.