Premier SHC: Johnny Crowley pleased with Sarsfields' application in big win over Douglas

While reigning Co-op SuperStores Premier SHC champions Sarsfields were favourites going into their clash with Douglas, a 22-point victory certainly exceeded most expectations.

The Riverstown club ran out winners on a scoreline of 1-31 to 0-12 at Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday night, leading from wire to wire.

What was most pleasing for manager Johnny Crowley was the fact that his team continued to work hard up to the end.

“We applied ourselves to the game,” he said.

“We can’t concentrate on the opposition, we can only concentrate on ourselves. We worked very hard the last few weeks with this game in mind.

“It’s the first game, anything can happen in the championship and you don’t know what they’re going to bring. We had to concentrate on ourselves and bring the best performance that we could.

“I thought we applied ourselves well and worked very hard. Just before half-time, Danny Kearney and Shane O’Regan turned Douglas over on the sideline when we were ten or 11 points up; then, right at the death, Daniel Hogan got a score on the right-hand side and ten seconds later, he was on the opposite sideline, getting a hook or a block in.

“You can’t buy that, that’s desire.”

Given that Douglas are one of only two teams, along with Blackrock, to have reached the knockout stages in each of the four years of the new format, their under-performance came as a surprise.

For Sars, the focus remained on building their lead, should scoring-difference be required down the line.

“Again, first rounds are very difficult in that you try to prepare to play an opposition but yet you haven’t seen them,” Crowley said.

“It’s quite hard because you get a formation, systems and stuff like that, but ultimately we concentrate on ourselves.

“We don’t look at the opposition that much. We only concentrated on ourselves and trying to get a result and get a performance.

“We got both of those, so we’re happy with that.

“As a management team, when we did get the luxury of going ten or 12 points ahead, we tried to focus on that and said to lads, ‘Let’s put ourselves in the best position we can put ourselves.’”

If there was a period of the game where they dropped a little, it was during the first half, where poor shooting options were taken. However, that was ironed out.

“That third quarter of the first half, we just felt that we were shooting from 60, 70 yards,” Crowley said.

“We were probably playing like a team that was ten points up instead of playing like a team that was level.

“That’s what we said to them at half-time, we had two lads inside who were on their game and to get ball in to them rather than taking pot-shots from 60 or 70 yards.

“That’s a learning and we’ll look at that on video and bring it to the table with the lads the next day.”

What was also pleasing for Sars was that they were so strong without injured duo Cathal McCarthy and Killian Murphy while Luke Elliott and Aaron Myers, who had been travelling, were on the bench.

“We probably didn’t use a few lads,” Crowley said.

“Aaron will play tomorrow [for Sars’ intermediate team] and get 60 minutes under his belt and there are a few more there, Darragh Long and Killian and a few.

“That’ll stand to them and hopefully, Tuesday night, when they come back training, there should be a right bite. Those fellas will be pushing hard.”

With Newtownshandrum having beaten Bishopstown in the other game in the group, Sars’ meeting with the North Cork side in their next outing is likely to be pivotal.

“It was a great win, it’s a great start, we’ll look at Newtown now and we’ll prepare as diligently as we can for that,” he said.

Again, Newtown is our only focus and we’ll focus on that and prepare as best we can for that game.”

Unlike quite a few senior clubs, Sars have just one dual player, Daniel Hogan, which makes preparation easier.

“We’ve Danny and every manager wants his pound flesh out of him and you’re trying to mind him as best you can,” Crowley said.

“Absolutely, I suppose we’re lucky in one way but it’s something we have and we just deal with it.”