ADARE supporters, young and old are “quietly optimistic” ahead of Sunday's Limerick Senior Football Championship Final, according to GAA club chairperson Anne Marie Connolly.
After playing in seven of the last eight county finals, with a title success in three, the team is “absolutely ready” for another victory.
With wins in 2017, 2018, and 2020, Anne Marie explained: “We remember what the winning is like, so you just want that back again”.
“The team has learned so much in the last few years, there’s so much experience in the team,” she continued.
The team is “well ready” to regain the title, with a feeling amongst locals that “But for the kick of the ball, it could’ve been us on the winning side” in last year’s final, which saw Newcastle West take the crown by one point.
With injuries from earlier in the season all “healed and fixed and ready to go”, the team is “peaking at a good time”, Anne Marie explains.
A Donegal native, Anne Marie became chairperson this year, and says that the “red and black of Adare are my colours, without a doubt” and is proud to be part of “such an absolutely fantastic club” who she said this success “would mean so much” to.
Supporters are “nervously excited” about the game, with the adults “too scared to say it out loud” for fear of “jinxing it”.
The children have no such worries, Anne Marie laughs: “It's the schools where you'd see most of the excitement. The kids don’t have that fear, the kids are fierce excited, they look up to these guys”.
The team won against Newcastle West, their opponents in the last three finals, in this year’s semi-final, a game for which, Anne Marie explained, the levels of anticipation were off-the-charts.
“It was certainly a massive game to get over - the excitement levels for that were just fantastic,” said the chairperson.
“But,” she continued. “If we don’t follow that up now with a win, that’s no good to us”.
“We're not looking for a moral victory, we've had moral victories for the last eight years, there or thereabouts, that's not what we want. We want to finish it off, finish the job, get it done,” she explained.
The team are now up against “worthy opponents” Fr Caseys.
“We're expecting a good tough game. Beating Newcastle West doesn't mean that the job is done, not by a long shot. We have a big game coming up on Sunday to finish it off, and it's no good to us if we don't do that. The team “have left no stone unturned, training's going well, so please God that they get their just results.”
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