Regrets for Hennessy as Loughmore fail to fire

By Stephen Barry

When the dust settles on their Munster final defeat, Loughmore/Castleiney will reflect on an “unreal year”.

Until then, manager Shane Hennessy was left with regrets from their performance in Mallow in Sunday’s Munster Senior Club Football final defeat to Dr Crokes. “We’re massively disappointed,” he said.

“We probably didn’t hit the heights of our best football but at the same time, Dr Crokes didn’t let us.

“They had their homework done on us. They knew where we were strong, how we like to play, and they were able to stop us there. “They’re just so tactically aware in what to do. We were a small bit naïve maybe letting them go short (from kick-outs) a few times when we could’ve stopped it.

“One of our strong players, John McGrath, wasn’t 100% so that was disappointing that his influence on the game was curbed a little bit.”

Playing against the wind, Crokes were able to while away much of the first half, which left Loughmore facing a conundrum.

“They were playing down the clock, they knew what they were doing,” added Hennessy.

“There would’ve been three or four minutes of play where we didn’t get the ball in our hands, they were playing it over and back.

“It’s stick or twist. Do you go out on them and if you go out and press them, space opens up and you could be punished?

“It’s trying to find the happy medium. A couple of times when we did push out, we turned them over. But then, the flipside is a few times when we did push out, they were able to get scores so it’s hard to know.”

At the other end, a first-half return of three shots wasn’t enough.

“We should’ve had more scores on the board. Did we even have a wide in the first half?” Hennessy posed.

“We only scored three points, so we didn’t get enough shots off or enough bodies or enough of the ball up at that end of the field.”

Tom Doyle’s point to open the second half scoring for Crokes drew an admiring reaction from Hennessy:

“I said to Paddy (Nolan) beside me on the sideline, ‘That’s how you play football.’ That’s the way we want to play. It’s poetry in motion,” he said.

Regardless, 2024 will go down as a remarkable year in the club’s history as they completed a third senior hurling and football double in eleven years, and reaching a Munster final.

“In a few weeks, when time passes, we’ll reflect and say it was an unreal year,” Hennessy says.

“Nobody was able to beat us in Tipperary. It’d be a fair achievement if someone does it again.

“Nine games in hurling and six games in football unbeaten is serious going and something we can be proud of as a team.”