'If you have ambitions you have to have high expectations,' - Sean O'Meara

Kiladangan manager Sean O’Meara took over last year, and the daunting nature of coming into a team which has had success and are in the middle of their lifecycle leads to expectation he needed to take on board.

“There would have been a certain amount of that because they had been very successful and won their first ever county title which was a huge achievement.

“Expectation becomes high as that becomes the bar and the other challenge you have is to time your run. We started training in the first week of February and we were sluggish at times but you are trying to get the stamina and strength & conditioning stuff done.

“Expectation was high and always is high and if you have ambitions you have to have high expectations,” he said.

Kiladangan started their year in expected fashion with good wins over Kilruane and Toomevara in hard fought contests in the north championship, but the form really dipped their after and O’Meara acknowledged that it took a lot of games to find their form again.

“When the Tipp lads came back you were expecting this injection of energy, and this is with no criticism of the lads, it didn’t happen because some of them didn’t get a lot of game time and weren’t up to the pace what some of the lads were doing here.

“Then, guys started to come back from America and then got a few injuries. Willie’s injury was playing on a lot of lads minds as he was constantly here, and in fairness to him, he put in a huge effort to get back to where he is now, and against Drom we saw him back close to his best and a super performance.

“It was a strange match (the north quarter final), Kilruane were right in it until the last few minutes of extra time and we pulled away.

“There has never been an awful lot between the teams, and the fact it is a county final and a local derby doesn’t change that in any way. It is still going to be a challenging game for both teams.

“Kilruane have huge tradition. I am fortunate enough to remember very successful Kilruane teams in the seventies and eighties and they were extremely success. That tradition doesn’t go away and is always there.

“But at the same time, county final is a county final. The bit of hunger that they are going to bring to it because of the fact they haven’t had success for that long is going to need to be at least matched if not bettered by us as they are traditional side who are back in a county final where they always wanted to be, and it is then on the day as to who performs,” he finished.