Delight and relief for England

By Liam Hogan

Roscrea manager Liam England was immensely pleased with his team’s win over Gortnahoe/Glengoole in the County Premier Intermediate Hurling final on Sunday.

He admitted that this victory was the goal set out at the start of the year.

“Absolute relief and delight,” he began.

“We have been trying for this over the last few months. We put a plan in place last January and trained very very hard. We got a good bounce off the boys.

“But this is a unique moment. We spoke about it a lot as we have a very proud history in Roscrea, and we want to get back to the top table again.”

England added that his team played well in the second quarter but allowed Gortnahoe back into the game after half time, while admitting that the mid-men overcame the Roscrea tactic of using a three-man forward line because Roscrea felt that they had the legs on the Gortnahoe defence.

“You want to use the space in the stadium,” he added.

“If you look at the other end it was probably the same as well. There was a bunched middle third. That is the way hurling is gone.

“We had to get some decent ball to the men inside. We knew we had legs in there. Gortnahoe copped on to that and they dropped Davy Nolan back into the pocket and that nullified that for us.”

He added: “Listen, it’s all about variation but these boys don’t make it easy for us but as I said Daryl Ryan made two excellent saves for us, but our backline were excellent.

“The half backline was immense. Darren Connor got man of the match. There was Michael Campion on the wing and Darragh Tynan’s composure was good in the last five minutes. Under pressure he was able find the right man. We worked on a lot of that this year.

“Dan Ryan was good. We need him on the ball. He has loads of legs. Alan Tynan the same. He got very important scores in the second half. He was absolutely top class. The cream always comes to the top.”

“The six-point lead at half time definitely didn’t flatter us. I thought we were very tentative early in the second half and allowed them to gain a foothold in the game. I think they got on top a little bit around midfield and broke through a couple of times, but Daryl Ryan was immense in goals for us. That is what you need in the big days like that. Listen we sat back a bit in the second half as teams do but we came good in the finish as we won by four in the end, and I thought we deserved the win.”

Roscrea have achieved their main aim of getting back to senior level for 2023 having been relegated last year, but their current campaign isn’t over as they now head into the Munster intermediate championship, starting with a quarter final clash against Waterford’s Ballysaggart on the weekend after next.

“It is a little bit of bonus territory,” England said.

“I think we can take a shot. I have to admit we planned for this from the start. This is our sixth step. It will take a tenth step to get to Croker. That’s it. That was our goal at the start of the year. We are facing Ballysaggart in two weeks’ time, but we are doing our best to get to Croker.”