MARK Collins admits that Castlehaven struggled to recover from a ‘killer’ few minutes at the start of the second half that saw Dr Crokes stretch their half-time lead from one point to six.
Tony Brosnan’s penalty straight after half-time was followed by two points as Crokes took control, leaving Castlehaven playing catch-up in their Munster club quarter-final.
‘We knew we hadn’t played super in the first half and we were only a point down. Our aim at half time was to be in with a chance with 15 to go, but unfortunately those couple of minutes after half time were the killer,’ the Haven captain admitted.
‘The goal was more or less off the throw-in, we panicked a tiny bit and didn’t get our next couple of kick-outs away; that was something we struggled on all day and have been brilliant on over the last few years, up on 90 per cent in every game. In fairness, Crokes had their homework done on us and we struggled to get it away. They knocked over 1-2 in ten minutes and we were under pressure then.’
A dejected Collins added: ‘We are disappointed coming away, we didn’t do ourselves justice, that was one of our poorer performances over the last couple of years. To be fair, Crokes were excellent today, definitely the better team so we have no complaints.’
Castlehaven didn’t throw in the towel though. Even in the final quarter, down to 14 after Brian Hurley’s red card and trailing by seven, they left it all on the pitch, coming to within three.
‘Every game since we started this run 18 months ago, they’ve died with the boots on and it was the same here today,’ Collins said.
‘Even when we were down to 14 and without our talisman, Brian, we still managed to get it back to three going into injury-time. We died trying. We are disappointed with how we played, we feel we didn’t do ourselves justice but a lot of that was down to how Crokes played. We were beaten by the better team, fair and square.’
