Lifting the Banner’s spirits
It’s great to analyse the success of other counties, especially when that success is unexpected, but doing it for your own, that has to be a bit special. On Wednesday evening, in Dungarvan, Clare won the Munster U-21 hurling final, our first ever.
I say ‘our’, because regardless of the fact that I try to be as objective as I can in these columns, you never stop supporting your own. It was a special evening for Clare supporters, and not just because it was the county’s first at this grade. It was the manner of the win, going down to the heart of Waterford, taking them on in their home place, giving them a great start, then pegging it back and eventually, recording the victory.
The final score was indicative of the kind of game we saw, 2-17 to 2-12, which was good scoring, but especially good from a Clare point of view. This is not to rub salt into Waterford wounds, a county for which I have a lot of time. I know a lot of people were saying it was important for Waterford to win this for a number of reasons. Waterford hurling is very much on the up, and given that they had already knocked out Tipperary, the early favourites in Munster, they were expected to win here also. But believe me, this was far more important for Clare. Remember, all Waterford’s successes at this grade – three provincial titles – had come at the expense of Clare, so this was long overdue.
What makes this even more significant, from a Clare point of view, was that this was a very good Waterford team, with several outstanding players. You can start with the goalkeeper, Adrian Power, a really good keeper; outside him you had Noel Connors, then that great minor, Phillip Mahoney, Stephen Daniels at centre-back, and up front you had Maurice Shanahan, one of the heroes of Waterford’s late win over Limerick in Sunday’s All-Ireland senior quarter-final. The talent doesn’t stop there. You also had Shane Casey, scorer of 1-3 on the night, and finally Tomás Ryan, a really nippy corner-forward who finished with 1-1 on Wednesday. Those are all really good players, consistently good, had performed well against Tipperary and will undoubtedly figure on a bigger stage in the future. That Clare overcame that team, then, speaks volumes for them. They dug in, they played with typical Clare spirit, Clare heart, Clare commitment and stuck with it even when things were going against them.
I’ve named the Waterford stars, now I’ll go to Clare, and I’ll start with the keeper. Donal Tuohy played very well, and after what happened to him last year (in the final against Tipp, Donal was pulled in injury-time for going outside the square with his puckout, the subsequent 65 was pointed and Clare were beaten by a point). He was under serious pressure – it didn’t show, and he put in a near-faultless display. His puckouts were good, finding his target regularly and he made one very brave save to deny a goal. In front of him, Eamonn Glynn at fullback was outstanding, and so was the captain in the corner, Kieran O’Doherty. Domhnall O’Donovan at wing-back also caught the eye, as did Enda Barrett on the other wing. When it came down to it, however, the four men who really stole the show for Clare were Nickey O’Connell (started at midfield but a master move saw him go to centre-back), who scored three great long-range frees in the first-half; John Conlon was absolutely outstanding when Clare really need someone to win possession, from puck-outs especially he was the man that stepped up. Then there was Colin Ryan, not just for his ability to hit frees but also his ability to take the half-chance from play. Last man of the quarter, however, and to me this guy is special, a fantastic future – Darach Honan.
I’ve often spoken of Ray Cummins as being almost the perfect full-forward, so intelligent, a good ball-winner, a finisher and a distributor – Honan was all that, and more. He finished with 2-2, all brilliant scores. His second goal will surely be in line for goal-of-the-year. Clare were up a point, he collected the ball about 50 yards out, headed for goal, had no mean defender in Shane Fives on his tail, but still, with the minimum of backswing, he got so much power on the ball that even a keeper of Power’s ability could do nothing about it. Instead of wildly celebrating the goal, he then got in the way of Power, and prevented him from taking the fast puckout. This was a man who was fully tuned in. Mind you, his father, Colm, was no mean player either, in his day.
I want to mention two special people. John Minogue and Cyril Lyons have had their critics in Clare — it never bothered either of them. In their own day they were very good players; they are two good hurling men. They got involved with this side not for what they can get out of it but purely for what they can give back. They got their reward on Wednesday night. The team played for each other, yes, but they also played for their management. Superbly prepared, superbly coached, this was a team win in every sense.
What will do this do for Clare hurling? I remember 1992 and 1994 when Clare lost the provincial final each year in this grade. The players we got from those teams went on to backbone the successes of 1995 and 1997. Davy Fitz, Brian and Frank Lohan, Jamesie O’Connor, Conor Clancy, Colin Lynch, Ollie Baker, Stephen McNamara, Fergal Hegarty, and the great Seánie McMahon, most of those are now household names in Ireland.
If we could get that kind of harvest from two losing teams, how many will come through from this? All those I named above are already on the fringe – in a year when people saw only doom and gloom in Clare, the future suddenly looks very bright.
This is the first time I’ve written a piece like this – I hope it won’t be my last. Galway await in an All-Ireland semi-final, and I hope now that this team will get the kind of support they deserve, regardless of where the game is held. They didn’t have it in Dungarvan, came through anyway, but youngsters especially need support.
The Munster monkey is off their backs, let’s see now how far they can go.
