Mitchelstown manager relieved with result but rues Cathail O'Mahony's latest hamstring injury

Mitchelstown manager Denis Reen admitted that Cathail O’Mahony’s second-half hamstring injury cast a shadow over his side’s McCarthy Insurance Group IAFC Group 2 Round 1 victory against Gabriel Rangers in Ahiohill on Thursday.

The Avondhu side were convincing 4-11 to 0-15 winners, but the sight of the Cork forward leaving the field early was the moment that lingered.

Reen confirmed afterwards that O’Mahony has suffered a slight tear in the hamstring, describing it as another frustrating setback for a player who has endured repeated interruptions.

“Look, unfortunately Cathail has suffered a slight hamstring tear,” he said post-match. 

“It happened to us down in Kinsale earlier this year, the same injury. It’s just unfortunate. His body just isn’t holding up at the moment.

“We’re hoping we’ll have him back for the next championship game against St Finbarr’s second team in three weeks. If we don’t, then we’ll have him for Dromtarriffe hopefully.

“The poor boy just wants to play football. Last Friday you should have seen him in training — he was sensational. We took it easy with him this week, and then he suffers the injury.” 

Up to that point, Mitchelstown had been in control of a contest they expected to be tight. Gabriel Rangers had beaten them in the last two championship meetings, and Reen stressed that arriving in Ahiohill meant bracing for a battle.

“Absolutely delighted with the win,” he said. 

“If you said before the game that we would win by eight points, we would have bitten your hand off. The last two years they played each other in the championship, Gabriel Rangers won both games. So coming in here we knew it would be a tough battle.

“We showed a bit of grit. We didn’t play our best football, but we had to dig deep. Gabriel Rangers came at us there in the second half."

Reen pointed to the defensive structure as the foundation of their response, even as their own scoring rate dipped after the break. Derry native Ronan Murphy was outstanding at centre-back and also chipped in with a goal.

“We are defensively structured. We pride ourselves on that. We only got the first 15 minutes wrong — Gabriel Rangers caused trouble in pockets. But we dealt with that then after a while and at half-time we discussed it.

“We had to be ready for this and we were all ready for it. The preparation was perfect. Tactically, we were not happy because we knew they would play through the middle in the first half.

“We discussed this. We saw video clips of their first six scores coming through the middle, so we knew that coming in to the dressing room."

Reen also touched on the mindset shift required after winning the Division 5 League — a first trophy in 13 years.

“The league and championship are two different things. But it was very easy to steady the lads after the league. Actually very easy. 

"We were very lucky — maybe the game we had here this evening and having lost to them twice in recent years, we had to be ready."