Having managed his club to county final success in 2020, former player Shane Sweeney is still the man at the helm. His passion and drive is very much part and parcel of the Pearses’ success story. Shane says he knew that it wouldn’t be easy to get back into a final this year.
“I know it’s easy to say now, but I knew that it would be a tight squeeze to get past Oran. We had a long gap back to our previous game. We were never going to go out and beat Oran easily. We were just glad to get out of there by a couple of points”.
He is pleased with the momentum in the Pearses’ camp over the past while.
“The atmosphere among the group is good. Everyone is happy and we are preparing hard now for the big day”.
The manager says hard work is the key to a good performance. “You have to work hard and take your chances on the day. If we don’t take our chances we won’t be winning”.
For this group of Pearses players, it would be an important achievement to add another title to the one they won in 2020.
“I came into the job in 2020 and I wanted to get 20 lads to dedicate themselves to hurling and put in the commitment…if they never won anything I just wanted to see the effort being put in. In fairness we achieved that. You can see here tonight that there’s 27 or 28 lads here, which is brilliant. They are all competing to get on the team.
“We competed in the Galway league, the junior, the Roscommon league, and we have played lots of hurling. We haven’t won much this year so far, but all the lads are enjoying it which is the most important thing.
“The first year we won the championship, the second year we were beaten in a semi-final on penalties, and this year we are back in the final again. We will go in against Four Roads and give it our best shot”.
