Adare captain is aiming to put final defeats to bed.

Adare captain, Shane Doherty insists that history will play no part when his side face Newcastle West in the senior football final this Sunday in the Gaelic Grounds.

This is only the third ever time the club have found themselves in this position, having played two previous finals in 2002 and 2010, losing out on both occasions to Monaleen.

However Doherty is adamant that the players won’t be dwelling on previous results on Sunday.

“If you look at our panel, there’s only a handful of lads who were in them finals, so the rest of us, that kind of history doesn’t mean a whole pile to us really.”

“The fact that we had the experience of a county final last year and the Munster final as well, we have the experience of being in a final so I don’t think a final day will faze us”

“We have such a young team, a lot of them are fearless, they don’t think about nerves, they don’t think about the big occasion, they just go out and play which has stood to us this year”.

Adare will go into the game as underdogs having emerged the surprise winners of their semi-final clash with Drom-Broadford and the captain is under no illusions as to the challenge that faces them on Sunday.

“We know we can’t really get too carried away with ourselves. Getting relegated to intermediate a couple of years ago has really brought us down to earth and realised that you really have to put the hard work in to get to final.”

“You look at the calibre of players they have, the number of county players they have. Even if you look at the size of their squad compared to us, we’re quite a small, young team so we know we will be really up against it to try and get a result against them. We’ll just have to give it our best and hope we come out the right side.”

Limerick GAA supporters might be more familiar with seeing the Adare hurlers running onto the pitch in the Gaelic Grounds, and Doherty admits that, while there are those within the club that might prefer to see the hurlers in a county final, he does not resent the support his counterparts receive.

“It would be a huge statement [to win a football final] but at the same time, I’m a football man in Adare but I’d love to see the hurlers win as much as I’d love to win myself so we’re all going for the same aim in the end.”

He is hopeful however, that the success the footballers have enjoyed this year will further the progression of the sport within the club.

“It’s brilliant that football is getting this exposure and even we saw at the end of the game the last day, we had all the young kids in around us doing the warm-up so the fact that they’re seeing the senior footballers do so well, it will hopefully rub off on them in the future”.