06/10/03

We escaped, I thought we were gone, says relieved Sherlock

By Diarmuid O’Flynn
NO question about it, Blackrock got out of jail yesterday, could have seen their three-in-a-row dreams gone up in smoke, and team captain Wayne Sherlock wasn’t for pretending.

Only two points ahead, dying seconds, facing a Diarmuid O’Sullivan penalty, the man with probably the hardest shot in hurling. All over, surely. “We escaped, no doubt about it, an awful way for them to lose a game. I thought it was gone, especially when we saw Diarmuid standing over it. I suppose we said a few prayers, someone up there is looking after us, it hit the crossbar. Unlucky for them, but we’re happy it wasn’t us.”

Not a good time either for Blackrock coach Timmy Murphy, who earlier had seen his stuttering side squander chance after chance.

“The heart was in the mouth. We expected this challenge from Cloyne, they’re a very passionate team, very passionate club about their hurling. We had a very fragmented year in terms of preparation, but we asked the lads to dig deep today. There was a lot of disruption to our preparation, but we pulled it out again at the death, showed what a fine side we are.

“But it’s only a semi-final, there is nothing won, the attitude we have is to take it one game at a time.

That wasn’t the first break Blackrock got. Towards the end of the first-half, Cloyne well on top, a long free by wing-back Fergal Ryan travelled all the way to the net, off the hand of Cloyne keeper and captain Donal Óg Cusack. Heavy traffic in front of the Cloyne inter-county keeper had obscured his view and that break gave impetus to what had been a very sterile Blackrock attack. “Yeah, we had 11 wides to two in the first-half, our focus was off a little bit.

From his position deep in an under-pressure defence, Sherlock wasn’t very impressed with the shooting of his front-men either. “The wides are definitely a worry, the worst thing you can see from a defence point of view, but at least you can work on wides, we’re in the final now, and that’s something to look forward to. But there’ll be no talk of three-in-a-row, there’s a lot of fellas on this team who played when we weren’t winning matches for a few years. We’re just happy to be in the county final, hopefully win it.”

Lucky to be in it also, and Cloyne coach Donal Clifford is left to pick up the pieces, try to console his side, get them ready again for next year.

“It’s been a long campaign, started back in December with a meeting when we set the objective of winning the county title, which seemed unthinkable at the time.
“There’s a hill outside Cloyne called Morrissey’s Hill, we went up there, built our stamina, tough going in muck and grime, the people who wash the gear should be commended. Then we went down to a spot near Killorglin, in Kerry, camp for a weekend, team-building exercises; before the Barrs game we went to Gougane Barra, similar type of preparation. It was all paying off, we thought we might do it today, but ultimately it was disappointment for us.
“We felt we should have won it, we feel we left it after us, but Blackrock are very hard to beat, a very good team, great tradition, and we’d like to commend them on that tradition.”