Captains fantastic remember

THE Captains Fantastic they were, both of them counties from decades in the wilderness, each will be remembered forever for their epic speeches on those days of days.

For Joe Connolly and Galway it was 1980 in Croke Park, an eloquent, emotional oration in the most beautiful of Irish following their first All-Ireland championship title since 1923. For Anthony Daly and Clare it was 1995 in Thurles, a first Munster title since 1932, their second since 1914. As they had done in 1914, Clare 1995 went on to win the All-Ireland title, also their second, but Munster was the real breakthrough.

"When I was speaking after that game, I wanted to mention the venues where we lost all those games over all those years, bitter losses," Daly recalls. "There was a huge sense of relief and I suppose Tony Consodine summed it up best, when he said 'the funerals are over'. That was always the sense we had coming back from another Munster final beating, a sense of death, of funerals."