Christy O'Connor: Brian Lohan has given more players game time than any other manager

Clare have used a staggering 62 players in league and championship across a five year period.

Sat, 20 Jul, 2024 - 18:30

Not long after St Joseph’s Tulla won a maiden and historic Harty Cup in 2022, Adam Hogan got a text message from Brian Lohan. Except he wasn’t sure it was Lohan. Hogan thought it was one of his school-mates pranking him. So he texted Paddy Donnellan for clarification.

Donnellan, who was in St Joseph’s a few years earlier, was on the Clare panel by then and he confirmed to Hogan that it was Lohan’s number. St Joseph’s had just lost an All-Ireland colleges semi-final to St Kieran’s. The Clare U20s were out of the championship by mid-April. So the first chance Lohan got, he called Hogan into the squad.

Five weeks later, just two weeks before he sat his Leaving Certificate, Hogan made his championship debut against Waterford. Clare had already secured qualification for the Munster final before that game. They rolled over Waterford that afternoon but Lohan still pitched Hogan in after 53 minutes.

He had never even played a league game, but neither had Eamonn Foudy, who was also introduced for his championship debut that day. So was Darragh Lohan. Cian Nolan, who started that match, was the first player from Smith O’Brien’s to play senior championship in 44 years.

When Hogan made his league debut the following February against Westmeath, Jack Kirwan and Brandon O’Connell also started a first league game, while Keith Smyth and Gearóid O’Grady made their first league appearance off the bench.

And on and on the process has gone. Conor Leen, Seán Rynne, Gearóid Sheedy, Cian Broderick and John Conneally all made their senior debuts during the league. Rynne, Broderick and Smith were on the 26 for the All-Ireland semi-final. In his debut season, Leen has been one of the outstanding young players in the championship.

When Shane O’Donnell was interviewed by TG4 after the league final win against Kilkenny in early April, he outlined what he felt was the key positive of the campaign.

“I think the development of young players has been the biggest thing,” said O’Donnell. “We have seen a couple of the younger lads having a brilliant league. When Brian took over, he fostered that younger group with the likes of Mark Rodgers, who has been brilliant the last couple of years. And another few added to it today, like Conor Leen.”

The youngsters have consistently repaid that faith that Lohan has shown in them. Rodgers and Hogan were shortlisted for Young Hurler of the Year last year, with Rodgers winning the award. Leen is one of the frontrunners for that award this year.

This is still a very experienced and mature Clare squad. Of the 20 players which featured against Kilkenny two weeks ago, 12 played in Lohan’s first championship game in charge four years ago, while two more of the current panel also played that afternoon. Two of the most experienced players – John Conlon and Peter Duggan – missed that 2020 season, Conlon through injury, while Duggan was abroad.

And yet despite that stability, Lohan has kept searching, kept looking for players to add to the squad. No other manager has given game time to more players in the last five years than Lohan; Clare have used a staggering 62 players in league and championship across that period. When the Munster league figures are added, that number reaches as high as 83.

The search is always ongoing. Last November and December, Lohan looked at 55 players across a series of trial games, with 15 selected from that trawl getting game time in Clare’s two Munster league matches. Gearóid Sheedy, a former Clare minor sub ’keeper who plays with Ogonnelloe, was one of six captured in the net that made the extended panel for the league.

In every sense, Lohan has gone against the grain. The strength and conditioning revolution and the emphasis on power in the modern game has made it much harder now for young players to break through than in the past.

And yet Clare have done so, in bigger numbers than any other county.

In the 2022 championship, the top nine counties only used 15 players who were under 21, but Clare accounted for one-third of them. Four played in that year’s Munster final; Rodgers, Shane Meehan, Patrick Crotty and Robin Mounsey. Crotty was still under-19 at the time.

Jack Kirwan made his championship debut against Tipp last year. Cian Galvin first appeared in the championship last June against Dublin. Galvin and Darragh Lohan started the league final in April and were given regular starting jerseys in the Munster championship. Paddy Donnellan made his championship debut against Tipperary in May.

The volume of young players used has been all the more impressive again considering the dearth of perceived talent coming through at the end of the last decade. After the feast from Clare’s three successive All-Ireland Under-21 titles between 2012 and 2014, Clare was beset with a famine in that grade.

Clare only won one game at under-21/under-20 level, against Kerry, between 2016 and 2022. Their aggregate losing margin was 80 points. Clare lost four of their eight games by margins of 13 points or more.

Clare’s underage struggles were part of the overall malaise from the top down at board level, but matters reached a nadir in July 2021 when Cork beat the minors by 40 points. It was all the more worrying again with the clock ticking against Clare’s golden generation.

Yet Clare were still in better shape than underage results suggested they should be.

Some high-quality players had come off those heavily defeated under-21/under-20 teams; David Fitzgerald, Rory Hayes, Ryan Taylor, Diarmuid Ryan, Aidan McCarthy, Ian Galvin, Aron Shanagher, Rodgers, Meehan.

The tide also began to turn at the outset of this decade when St Flannan’s won the Harty Cup in 2020 and St Joseph’s won it two years later. Clare could have beaten Cork in last year’s Munster U20 final. They ran Cork close again in this year’s Munster U20 semi-final, three years after that side was annihilated by 40 points. Seven of the players which featured in that U20 semi-final in May were on the Clare minor team which won last year’s All-Ireland.

When Ardscoil Rís reached this year’s Harty final, nine of the starting team were from Clare, five of whom had played on that successful Clare minor team last year. Clare were unlucky to lose this year’s All-Ireland minor semi-final to Kilkenny after extra-time. Their odyssey was even more impressive again considering Marc O’Brien – one of the best young players in the country – suffered a serious knee injury in their second game against Limerick.

After the barren underage years of the latter part of the last decade, the soil is fertile again, ripe for Clare to reap a rich bounty and harvest in the coming years - especially with a manager eager to give young players their chance.

The future is bright. Yet for Clare, the only future is now. Sunday.