Cratloe are the bookies favourites to reach a unique senior hurling and football Munster Club Final, but The Nire won’t mind

The last time The Nire played in the Munster Senior Club Championship (2006) they reached the Munster Final loosing out to a Dr Crokes team which included Colm Cooper in it at Cork on a 2-5 to 0-8 score line.

Of course The Nire won the Conway Cup again in 2008, but because a decision was taken to suspend the championships in Waterford that year as the counties senior hurlers went on a winning run after loosing the Munster Championship opener against Clare, a run that saw them contest the All-Ireland Final against Kilkenny in early September, a team was not ready on time to contest the Munster Senior Club Football Championship.

Suspending Championships and not having a team in place to contest the Munster Club Championship in the three grades is something that is not new. It happens in many counties. We saw it happen in Tipperary this year. They did not have a team in place to contest the Munster Senior Club Football Championship and the Munster Intermediate Club Hurling Championship.

The GAA at Central Council level have purposed that the Club Championships be finished in the one calendar year and this is something that should be welcomed by most club players in most counties as the current practice in many counties means that they miss out on representing their counties at a provincial level, a chance that for some could be their only chance in their career.

Of course The Nire is not the only Waterford team to reach a Senior Club Football final. Two years before they did so, Stradbally reached the final, drawing with the Clare Champions Kilmurray-Ibrickane 0-9 each before loosing the replay 0-9 to 0-8, and a year after The Nire contested the final, Ballinacourty were in the final loosing 1-10 to 1-7 against Dromcollogher Broadford from Limerick, and back in the 80’s when Kilrossanty were the top side in the county, they too reached a final, but like those that contested finals after them defeat was their lot.

Sooner rather than later it can’t but feel that a Waterford club will contest and win a provincial final and there is some that feel that 2014 will be that year.

Clare champions Cratloe travel to Fraher Field this weekend to challenge The Nire in the semi finals. They will travel to Dungarvan as the clearest of favourites, which is something that will not worry The Nire too much as they will know that many did not give them any hope going into their recent County Final game against Stradbally at the same venue.

The Clare side are both Senior Hurling and Football champions in the Banner County and are safely through to the hurling decider against Limerick champions Kilmallock after beating Tipperary champions Thurles Sarsfields in Ennis last weekend, and if they were to beat The Nire this weekend that would become one of a handful of teams to appear in both the senior hurling and football decider in the one year.

Of course The Nire will already know how strong the Clare Champions are likely to be as just twelve months ago, they beat Ballinacourty in Ennis on a 1-10 to 0-11 score line just under twenty four hours after winning the Clare championship.

Cratloe to reach this weekends game have played just five games and against three different clubs.

They began their year with a 2-12 to 1-12 win over Eire Óg  and followed it up with a 1-8 to 1-4 win over Cooraclare.  

These two wins gave the East Clare outfit a quarter final spot against O’Currys a game they won 0-16 to 1-9 and in the semi final Cooraclare were again to provide the opposition a game that Cratloe just as in the first meeting of the two won by four points, this time on a 0-12 to 0-8 score line.

Eire Óg were to provide the opposition for Cratloe in the County Final a game that the champions won a little easier than the first meeting of the sides. Three points separated the sides the first day, in the county final it was seven.

Goals that day from Conor McGrath after he was set up by Podge Collins on five minutes and by Collins seven minutes later proved to be the key scores in that game.

Podge Collins is possibly Cratloe’s most famous player and he has former Limerick footballer John Galvin playing alongside him this year which is a huge plus to the Clare side. However the Clare side do not rely solely on these two as Cathal McInerney, Liam Markham, Barry Duggan and Conor McGrath amongst others are all fine footballers.

The Nire go into this weekend’s game with a one hundred per cent win record at their backs having recorded wins over Ballinameela, St Saviours, Stradbally, De La Salle and Gaultier in the group stages of the championship.

In the quarter finals they beat neighbours Rathgormack by three points and in the semi final just one point separated them from An Rinn.

In the county final Stradbally again provided the opposition and the Nire put in a polished performance on beating them 0-11 to 0-6 at Fraher Field.

Last time out The Nire played Limerick champions Ballylanders in the quarter finals of the Munster Championship, a game that The Nire possibly served up their best performance of the year winning on a 1-11 to 0-7 score line in Kilmallock.

Teenager Conor Gleeson has received some glowing reports for his most recent performances and rightly so, as he truly is a fine prospect.

The Nire however do not rely on him to produce the goods as right throughout the team they have some fine players.

No doubt the Clare champions will have come up with a plan to try and curtail him if as I suspect they did see him in the win over Ballylanders and maybe even against Stradbally, but to try and keep him quite could mean that the focus would allow someone else to be the person to make the headlines and in the likes of Shane Walsh, Liam Lawlor, Jamie Barron, Brian and Diarmuid Wall, the O’Gorman brothers Michael, Thomas and Maurice and Shane Ryan they have some fine footballers who can turn a game at a moments notice.

At 8/15 in the bookies, the Clare champions will be fancied to win to overcome the challenge of The Nire, but with what could be a decent gathering behind them, especially with Brickeys involved in a curtain raiser to the game, a sixteen man for the Benjie Whelan’s side could prove to be decisive in their quest to reach a second Munster Senior club final in the clubs history.