Strong buy-in has Imokilly football up and running again

Never let it be said that there’s no football in East Cork.

Imokilly returned to McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC action on Tuesday night, recording a 0-16 to 0-5 win over MTU Cork at Carrigtwohill.

The heritage is there – Imokilly won the county in 1984 and 1986 – and, with 40 players, representing a total of 14 different clubs, togged out on Tuesday, it’s clear that the interest is there, too.

Joint-manager Martin Enright was delighted to see the efforts paying off.

“There was a lot of work put in, in fairness, and the lads bought into it – that was the main thing for us here, was to buy into it,” he said.

“But we kind of hadn't been tested so far. That's the first time tonight that those lads have played as a 15 and you could kind of see it, early doors.

“But they grew into it, they started to learn how each other played, and it made a massive difference in the end.

“In fairness, John O’Connor, the co-manager with me, put in a lot of work this year. Everyone on the management panel has been involved with Cork squads before, and we tried to bring it as closely to that level as we possibly could.

“We treated the lads with respect and worked with the clubs – if a lad had club commitments, the club came first. That was the most important thing for us, that no lad felt obligated to come to us.

“We wanted this to be a free expression of football, to show that football is in east Cork – come out, enjoy yourself, we'll look after you as best we possibly can and, in fairness, the lads bought into it.”

Imokilly led all through but poor shooting in the first half meant they held a 0-4 to 0-2 advantage coming up to half-time despite having had far more of the play. Three late points gave a cushion that was then built on in the second half, with Daniel Murnane finishing with nine points.

“In fairness, we've been working an awful lot on the inter-play in training,” Enright said, “to get the lads moving as much as physically possible.

“Carrigtwohill is a fantastic facility, it’s a big, wide pitch, we wanted to use that width as much as possible and we did that.

“Obviously, we're a team that haven't been together long, and that was reflected in the scoring in that first half but we're proud of the lads to make those chances. Imokilly teams in the past

probably weren't even getting those chances there.

“The fact that we're getting them, we just need to clean up on that for the next day.”

They will be in action again next Tuesday week, against the winners of the Beara-Seandún clash, with Enright keen to ensure competition for places between now and then.

“Our plan is to get a challenge game in next Wednesday, hopefully,” he said.

“In fairness, we’ve had such a big buy-in this year, we retained nearly 40 lads, so our plan now is next week to get a whole different 15 on the pitch.

“It's a blank slate and we’re going to be picking game on game – we're treating it like an international squad that way.

“If a lad puts his hand up, he gets the nod.”