DESPITE Kilcoo’s almost complete dominance in Down for more than a decade, Burren joint-manager Stevie O’Hare insists their aim always remains the same – to win the championship.
The Magpies have collected the Frank O’Hare Cup 11 times in the past 12 years, and are targeting another six-in-a-row.
The only time Kilcoo missed out recently was in 2018, when Burren defeated them in the decider. That was especially sweet for the St Mary’s side as it stopped the Eoghan Ruas from breaking the record (shared on six with Burren) and setting seven-in-a-row as the new longest streak of success.
However, although Kilcoo have won the last five, including defeating Burren in the finals of last year and in 2021, O’Hare says that his club never set their sights any lower than being top dogs themselves:
“That’s the target, to win the championship. Burren’s a big club, a proud club. That’s our target every year, win the championship. That’s what you start off to do. We’re in the semi-final, we’re more than happy with where we are.”
So no change in that regard, but changes in other areas, including O’Hare taking charge in partnership with fellow clubman Eoin McCartan, replacing Jim McCorry after the disappointment of last year’s poor final showing.
O’Hare says that double scores defeat, 2-12 to 0-9, isn’t still on Burren minds, though: “I wouldn’t say it’s niggling. We’ve moved on – it’s a new year, it’s a new chapter.
“Management has changed. We want to go and win the championship. That was the aim at the start of the year, the aim hasn’t changed.”
Their progress to the last four wasn’t as convincing as it could have been, with a stuttering second half showing in Sunday’s quarter-final win over Bredagh.
Seven up at half-time, 2-6 to 0-5, after well-worked goals by Liam Kerr and Danny Magill, Burren only scored once, a free, in the third quarter, and were holding on in added time for their eventual 2-10 to 1-10 victory.
Burren did have to play around a quarter of the match with 14 men due to the sin-binning of Conaill McGovern before the break and then Danny Magill late on, although O’Hare pointed out they coped reasonably well: “First half we actually scored more than they did when he was off. The second one wasn’t ideal because it left us tight in a bad situation. Picking up two black cards is hard in a match.”
O’Hare acknowledged there’s room for improvement in his side’s finishing, having carved out a few openings for goals but only took the two in the first quarter: “I think we left two or three goal chances behind us, but we can work on that in training, finish them off, get it worked out for the next day, hopefully put them in the net in the semi-final.
“Bredagh stepped it up and we missed a few chances, didn’t keep the scoreboard ticking over as much as we wanted. Bredagh came to us and when a team gets on top of you it’s hard to turn it around. We knew at half-time what we had to do, we had targets to meet – I’d say we haven’t met them.
“It’s a 60-minute game, you have to do it for 60 minutes – if we could get a bit of the first half into the second half we’d be happy enough. I didn’t enjoy the last 15 minutes too much, but it was good up to then.”