Clare Senior Football Championship 1st Round - Saturday, August 6th 2022

Eire Og Inis 0-13 St. Breckans Lisdoonvarna 0-12

The Eire Og senior footballers started the 2022 football campaign with a narrow win over the recently crowned Cusack Cup winners, St. Breckans from Lisdoonvarna. In the Cusack Cup (the Clare senior football league division 1 for the uninitiated) this year, St Breckans swept all before them and recently claimed the Cusack Cup in swashbuckling fashion hence this was all set to be the tie of the round. Of course, the Townies had comprehensively beaten Breckans in last year’s championship semi-final where the Lisdoon lads had arrived on an unbeaten run. All set for a clash of the titans in the 1st round then.

Like the senior hurlers last week, the senior footballers were slow getting out of the blocks while Breckans played with a fluency and speed that spoke of true Cusack Cup champions. The Clare champions of 2021 looked out-of-sorts and went in at half time 3 points down - 0-5- to 0-8 at the break.

Again, in a similar vein to the hurlers last week, the footballers came out like men possessed after the break. They tore into Breckans, they tightened up in defence with the battle between the two county men, Manus Doherty and Joe McGann, something to behold. From turnovers in defence, the likes of Einne O’Connor and Ciaran Russell ran at the Lisdoon defence and drew frees which either Gavin Cooney or Mark McInerney slotted over. The greater experience of the Eire Og men began to tell as they edged ahead with a Gavin Cooney free. They edged further ahead by 3 points in total when Breckans were reduced to 14 men after an off-the-ball incident that left the referee with no option.

To the credit of the men from north Clare, they didn't buckle and threw everything including the kitchen sink at Eire Og to reduce the deficit to a single point with the Townie fans baying for the final whistle which the referee duly delivered.

So, an opening round win for our senior footballers and they will take great heart from that win. They had to dig deep to beat a good Breckans team, I have a feeling these teams will meet again in the later rounds. In the other game in the group, Corofin, fresh up from the intermediate ranks, beat Milltown Malbay by a single point in an exciting game to close proceedings today in the park.

Match photos to follow on Facebook.