'A statement win' says Jimmy Barry-Murphy as St Finbarr's knock champions Castlehaven out

St Finbarr’s selector Jimmy Barry-Murphy didn’t hide his delight after a massive win for the Togher outfit on Sunday afternoon.

The city men knocked out the holders Castlehaven in the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC quarter-final at a packed Clonakilty.

The Haven were going for three-in-a-row this year, both in terms of victories over the Barrs and winning the championship.

St Finbarr’s though got it tactically spot on, were clinical and showed composure to win 6-11 to 0-19.

“It means a lot because we have huge respect for Castlehaven,” the Cork GAA legend said to The Echo post-match.

“They’ve been great champions for the last two years. We’ve been on the receiving end of defeats from them.

“Coming down here today, we knew it would take a massive effort to beat them and I think our lads rose to the challenge.

“Scoring six goals is one of those freaky things that happens some days. Sometimes you go through a championship and you wouldn’t get a goal. It was just extraordinary to get six goals. I’ve never seen that in a championship game before, playing such good opposition.

“I suppose the fact that Castlehaven are on the road quite a bit, maybe their legs were tired. It's hard going to win three-in-a-row, everyone knows that. So maybe we had the edge in hunger today.” 

St Finbarr’s low block caused problems for Castlehaven and they had the forwards to cause damage. Barry-Murphy was pleased with how the game plan worked for his side.

“Every time we broke forward we looked like scoring and our forwards were very, very dangerous today,” he says.

“In fairness, led by Ian Maguire who was outstanding and Billy Hennessy as well, coming back after missing last year with an injury. Sam Ryan the same, who had a serious injury.

“So those players coming back have been a huge boost to us. We have the panel now, but when it came back to three points I’ll be honest, I was worried. It looked like Castlehaven had momentum with a couple of substitutions as well.

“But, we stuck to our game plan and kept our composure to win the game by 10 points I think it was in the end.” 

St Finbarr’s will now face Ballincollig in the last four after the Village overcame Duhallow. The Togher team have lost at the semi-final hurdle in the last two seasons. They will be hoping to make it third time lucky.

“We’re in the semi-final now and there’s huge respect for every team left. It’s a matter of reproducing that kind of form we showed today when you go out on the field again. Getting to a county final is now our task.

“We’ve got a huge chance, but nothing is won. It was a big statement win for us today, but it’s all about carrying on the improvements we have shown today and in the last game against Carrigaline.” Barry-Murphy concluded.