Tipperary football champions Clonmel Commercials turn their thoughts towards Munster quarter-final

Clonmel Commercials will be ready for and are looking forward to the Munster Club Senior Football Championship quarter-final against the Limerick champions, Adare or Newcastle West, on Sunday November 12.

That was the message from Commercials manager Tommy Morrissey, after his team beat JK Brackens in the FBD Insurance County Senior Football Championship final.

“We’ve three weeks of a gap now to the Munster quarter-final and that’s something we’ll be looking forward to. It’s where I feel this group of players should be competing, and now we have another opportunity this year,” he said after last Sunday’s game at FBD Semple Stadium.

“To win a Munster championship, we were the first (and so far only) club to do it from Tipperary (in 2015), it’s not easily done. To be brutally honest, we haven’t spoken about anything beyond today and winning the county title”.

He said they would be sitting down this week and, with home advantage for the tie against the Limerick champions, would consider the choice of venue for a game that will have a 1.30 start.

The manager described Sunday’s final as an unusual game, one in which eight goals were scored. Six of those were scored by his team, despite the fact that they didn’t register a score in the last 15 minutes of the first half.

“In the first 15 minutes everything was going according to plan. The next thing a little switch changes and we kind of go off path a little bit and let Brackens back into the game and give them a bit of oxygen, which was disappointing.

“But as I keep saying to the guys, there’s no such thing as a perfect hour of football, and you need to be able to react to a scenario when you’re not going well, and I think they did that in the second half”.

The message he delivered at half time was “we played football for 15 minutes, we didn’t score for the final 15 minutes of the first half. We just need to relax, get back to basics, keep the ball, get it in our hands again and just settle a little bit.

“It’s just about clearing the head. Sometimes a little bit of panic can set in on the field, and you see the scoreboard ticking over on the other side and you start to wonder a little bit, but the boys have enough experience.

“They settled in the second half and we started it really well. We got a goal, I know Brackens came back and got a penalty, but still the boys reacted the right way again, we got a point and settled it again.

“That’s what’s in this group, it’s leadership, and they proved it again today.

“Six goals isn’t bad finishing. There were probably another six left out there, it was very unusual, with goal chances on both sides, and it’s something that we’ll have to look at again. It’s something we’ve been working on, not conceding opportunities. But then to concede that many is disappointing from our side.

“We’re obviously delighted to score that amount at the other end, but we might have been a bit happier with a couple of more points over the bar”.

When asked what Oisín McConville had brought to the set-up in his role as advisor, Tommy Morrissey replied “just experience. A man with the experience in terms of winning titles with both his club and with Armagh, that’s something from a footballing point of view we felt was needed in the group, for moments like when you’re under a bit of pressure.

“He has a lifetime of that with Crossmaglen and with Armagh, it’s (knowing) where you go to when the game is in the melting pot”.

Sunday’s success earned the club its 21st county senior title, bringing them level with Fethard as the clubs with the most senior championships won in the county.

“It means a lot, I won’t lie,” said the manager.

“The fact is it hasn’t been talked about, we haven’t been on about it. As I said during the week, that only becomes relevant when you’re looking back on history. For now it’s about this group and this county title, and that’s all we're really worried about”.

When it was put to him that the club’s conveyor belt of talent was still rolling, he said “we’ve 37 on the panel today and to me it’s really important that all 37 get a jersey, and are part of it, because we have a lot of youth on that bench- we’ve Thomas Charles, Joe Higgins, Tadhg Sheehan, all county minors last year, and they’re really not far off this.

“They’re pushing our boys in training, and they know that they’re coming behind them. It’s up to us to cut their teeth at it and we’ll be planning to do that, because they’re ready for senior football”.