Conran says controversy welded Wexford
The squad had been enveloped in controversy - blamed by county board chairman Sean Quirke on the media for “fuelling something that wasn’t there” - after Liam Dunne had retired, several players “walked away” and Darragh Ryan was dropped for a league game.
In the same way that he regards their win over Kilkenny as history - not really being relevant in terms of their Guinness Leinster hurling final against Offaly - he would prefer to forget about that whole episode.
Conran’s explanation is that while they were getting a lot of bad press outside the camp, difficulties they had within were no different to what most teams would encounter.
At the same time, he admitted there were “plenty of things” going on.
Darragh Ryan was dropped for one game, the team wasn’t playing particularly well and several players left the panel. In general, the whole team was pulling together quite well at the time.
“We were all anxious to do better, we were all feeling that we needed to, the management and the players. We still to this day don’t know why so much bad press came about because of it,” Conran said.
“As far as we were concerned we were working quite well as a unit. We had differences and we talked about it and we got over them very well. It probably served to bring us closer together as a unit and we worked really, really hard.
“The players took it on board themselves that we were going to do something about this and I think they proved it afterwards. We played quite well against Kilkenny and they have been working quite hard to make it go from here.”
Darragh Ryan remembered that the game before he was dropped, his direct opponent scored two goals against him. “I was upset at the time, if you didn’t get upset you wouldn’t be much of a player. Nobody likes being a substitute,” he said.
Conran interjected to praise his full-back for the “manly” way he responded to his dropping: “Obviously it was a difficult decision for Darragh and a difficult decision for us. But, he handled it like a man, really well at the time. He showed no animosity towards us, even though the papers at the time suggested that there was.
“And, he has proved the man he is by coming back so well. In some of the papers he got man-of-the-match the last day, which is testament to the man that he is.”
On the specific issue of his management of the team at the time, Conran said he doesn’t believe there was ever a question of a vote of confidence being taken by the players.
“We didn’t know where it came from, it was something that got out,” he said. “To this day we don’t know where it came from. Maybe the lads know something that I don’t know, but as far as I know, there was never a vote of no confidence.
“As long as the team themselves felt they wanted us behind them, we were happy enough, it didn’t matter what was said outside. We were convinced they did want us on board.”
One of the main concerns has been encouraging supporters to take a level-headed approach to tomorrow’s final. Conran admits Wexford supporters are prone to “go into over-drive” anytime they win, particularly against their big rivals Kilkenny.
Offaly will be a different proposition to Kilkenny, he said, describing them as their bogey team. He speaks from personal experience, recounting that during his own playing days he was on the losing side against them three times in the 80s.
“Myself and Martin (Quigley) were on those three teams where we beat Kilkenny and we thought we were Lord knob! And, then we went up and Offaly beat us in the final.
“We felt we didn’t do ourselves justice in the last few finals we contested. We might not have made it this year without a bit of luck. Kilkenny missed three chances in the second-half that would have put it out of our reach.
“We got a goal to win it, but how many times does it happen that you get a goal on the stroke of full-time? We have to look towards improving on that and making our game better.”
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