Colm Collin’s men will take the seeded position going into the last eight draw of the Clare Senior Football Championship following a two point victory over second place Lissycasey in the final round of group games at Cusack Park, Ennis.
Both sides went into the early throw in of Saturday’s fixtures with safe passage to the Quarter Finals guaranteed however it was apparent from the throw in that neither belligerent in this conflict had any intention of sparing themselves.
Corner-Back David Collins opened the scoring for the South East Clare men in the opening minute, however punters were forced to endure a barren spell for the next six minutes before the contest exploded into life.
The sides would go on to serve up sixteen scores shared evenly over the next twenty-five minutes with goals from Aaron Griffin on twenty-two minutes for Lissycasey followed by Podge Collins raising a green flag for Cratloe on the twenty-fourth the only majors of the day.
A first half haul of 1-01 for Aaron Griffin of Lissycasey and 1-02 for Podge Collins who was conducting the Cratloe orchestra saw the teams deadlocked at 1-07 apiece by the interval.
Cratloe stormed out of the blocks on the restart kicking the first three points in a row compliments of Cathal and Jack McInerney. However Lissycasey would rise to the challenge levelling matters through scores from Oisín Hanrahan, Enda and Conor Finucane and following another exchange of frees , the sides would be level for the fifth occasion on the forty-five minute mark at 1-11 apiece.
The telling difference however came in the final quarter when the dual champions of 2014 showed the bit between their teeth to outscore their opponents by 0-04 to 0-02 as they maintained their perfect run of form in the Clare Senior Football Championship to run out winners on a score line of 1-15 to 1-13.
The attention for both sides now turns to the last eight draw where Lissycasey will be hoping to reach a third semi-final in a row in the hunt for Jack Daly while Cratloe will be wishing to return to the last four for the first time since 2020.
