There was an air of regret and disappointment in Quilty on Sunday as Kilmurry Ibrickane exited the Munster club SFC to a better Dr Crokes side.
Aidan ‘Horse’ Moloney expressed the emotions of the downbeat hosts. “We know that when we came here against Crokes we had to take every chance, we had two really good chances of goals in the whole game and we didn’t take the two chances one in the first half, Steven Moloney hit a ball across to John McNamara in the second half and he just got too close to the goalie. We needed all those things to go our way today and they didn’t”.
Horse is in no argument that the better team prevailed pointing to Crokes’ superior fitness as a key factor. He questioned some of the decisions of referee Kevin Murphy at a time when the Bricks were still in with a shout. “I think we started reasonable enough, things didn’t go our way and I think it would be fair to say a lot of decisions didn’t go our way which we wouldn’t be happy with, really as the game went on the superior team stood and probably the superior fitness stood out overall today.
Very poor that’s my opinion of the first half especially, I thought there were a lot of tackles let go in the first half that shouldn’t have been, he started making up a bit towards the end, when the game was in the melting pot for us we didn’t get what we deserved”.
Conceding a goal inside the first five minutes of the second half was a crushing blow for Kilmurry Ibrickane. It put the Kerry champions five points in front and Moloney felt his side hadn’t the legs to bridge the gap.
“We needed a good start in the second half and we didn’t get it, to be honest when that goal went in it took the wind out of our fellas a bit, we struggled from there on, our game plan fell apart we started to give away too much possession, not enough of our players stood up today they played well in the county final last week and I think the second game in a week was too much for them”.
While he is very proud of the achievements of all involved this year in securing the Jack Daly, the 2002 championship winning captain laments the fact that they didn’t do themselves justice.
“At the end of the day I think Crokes kicked some fantastic scores, we have to call a spade a spade when it comes to it they were the better team today and when that goal went in they opened up and started keeping possession and they kicked some fantastic scores. From our own point of view we expected too much, Keelan did well in the first half but I think a lot of lads around him didn’t stand up today”.