2022 season not quite over for Kilruane

By Liam Hogan

The season isn’t over yet! Following Kilruane’s County Junior ‘B’ Football Championship win over Boherlahan-Dualla last Saturday, thoughts turn to a Munster campaign in the New Year where Kilruane will represent the county.

That is for the future but in the meantime, Kilruane manager Liam O’Kelly recalled the win over the Mid champions after he saw his troops hold out.

“It’s great for the players. They put in a huge effort there,” said O’Kelly after his side’s victory which completed a historic hurling and football double.

“You saw it there with 28 guys togged off. It’s fantastic for the club and fantastic to win the double. These are a great group of guys and the reward was to get another trophy and now we are in a Munster quarter final.”

Carl Williams goal before half time was critical to the win but O’Kelly pointed out there could have been one or two more while adding that he knew he had a bench to call on.

“We probably squandered one or two chances before that,” he added.

“It was a super goal when it came, a fantastic goal by a very good player. It’s a great day especially for those who trained all year.

“Some of them never got a game (hurling) and now they won a county final today like Rob Austin and Oisin O’Meara. We knew we had the legs, and I was able to deploy four or five from the bench. Springing Jerry Cahill off the bench in any sport is fantastic.”

O’Kelly admitted that he needed the bench as Kilruane were under pressure and his lads were prone to conceding frees.

“They came back hard at us in fairness,” he said of Boherlahan.

“They wanted this similar to last week where Cappawhite faced us but we won by a point. We are getting used to winning which in itself is a habit.

“Kevin Shinnors made a fantastic save and he made two super saves last week again. Look we learned to keep our discipline. We learned that in the hurling. We were conceding an awful lot of frees over the years. It’s something we worked hard on and it paid off today.

“We started with the football at the start of the year. I was looking at the Loughmore club and I saw what they were doing and it’s a testament to them and they proved it gives strength to our hurling and that is what we want going forward.”