O’Brien delighted with Moneygall’s victory

By James Hayden

Moneygall manager Paul O’Brien was justifiably delighted with the nature of his side’s thirteen-point victory over Borrisokane in the North Tipperary Intermediate Hurling final on Sunday.

Last year’s county finalists recaptured the Fr. Hewitt Cup with a performance Paul O’Brien was extremely proud of and paid tribute to his players and backroom team following the win.

“It was an excellent performance,” he began.

“We learned an awful lot from our win in the semi-final over Shannon Rovers. We knew we had a lot to work on and the big thing for us was to start the second half a lot stronger than we started last week. We worked on that and spoke about it on Tuesday night in terms of trying to get back and lay a platform and not allow the space we allowed against Shannon Rovers.

“We have nothing but the utmost respect for Borrisokane coming into this game, and we saw the threat that they posed in attack and midfield in their semi-final win over Kiladangan. We knew that if we laid their platform, they would have to respond to us.”

And that platform for victory was laid in the opening quarter, a fact that Paul alluded to in his post-match comments.

“Seán Fogarty starting on the left wing was a beneficial decision for us,” O’Brien added.

“We got 1-1 off two puckouts he caught. We didn’t have Seán Fogarty for three years and the work ethic he is after putting in to get himself into the shape he is in has been phenomenal.

“Everyone has bought into what we are trying to do in Moneygall. This was only our second game but next week it all starts again with a clash against Shannon Rovers in the county championship.”

With regard to his side’s response to Borrisokane’s decision to employ a sweeper, Paul said he wasn’t surprised with the decision, adding: “At the end of the we are very lucky to have in our arsenal players like Joe Fogarty and Sean Kenneally, but we have excellent forwards too outside of the two boys. The way we looked at it was if they were able to impose our gameplan they would have to ask themselves questions as to how they would respond to us.

“We had Conor Ryan and Aodhán Ryan in the middle of the park, and we saw the damage that Liam Cleary and Jack Larkin did last week, and we knew we had to target that area, flood that area and at least break even.

“Over the duration of the game, we edged it in different sectors but at different times they edged it too. In reality, we have a good team here in Moneygall despite the fact that we are down eight players from last year’s campaign.”

With regard to the performance of 18-year-old Andy Hoolan on Borrisokane’s marquee player, Oisín Larkin, the Moneygall manager said it was a decision based on trust to ask Andy to man-mark Oisín.

“I trust him and everyone else trusts him,” he said.

“We put him on Borrisokane’s marquee player, and he did absolutely fine. The decision is symbolic of the trust which we have built up in this panel. No matter who goes in they are there to do a job that is asked of them”.

Turning to Moneygall’s burning ambition to atone for last year’s county final loss, Paul agreed that his charges face an uphill challenge to reach the pinnacle of intermediate hurling in the county, a challenge that begins in MacDonagh Park Cloughjordan next Sunday against the Rovers.

“There are two divisional winners from last year in our group (Kilsheelan-Kilcash and Boherlahan-Dualla) and no matter what way we look at it it's going to be an attritional and tough campaign. We are hoping to get a few more lads back over the next couple of weeks but they are going to have to work fair hard to break into that team,” Paul concluded.