Good things come in small packages for Banner
NEARLY half an hour into the Munster semi-final, gale-force wind at their backs, Clare hold a tenuous one-goal lead against Limerick and are struggling to make inroads against a tight-marking, determined defence.
Then it comes; a defensive mistake. The ball is flicked towards the Limerick goal by big Declan O’Rourke, and Jonathon Clancy pounces.
It’s the worst kind of goal for a defence to concede, a soft goal, it’s the second such conceded by Limerick in this half, and it’s a hammer-blow. It doesn’t help that it’s delivered by the smallest man on the park.
In his street clothes, Jonathon Clancy is only a wisp of a lad, but that is so deceptive. He’s about the same height as Munster’s Peter Stringer, generously put as 5’7” in the stats sheet, but he also weighs in at about the same muscular 11 and a half stone, and he has the same hard competitive streak.
That’s what had him in the right place for the goal against Limerick, that’s what has him named at corner-forward for Clare tomorrow, in the Munster final against Tipperary.
It was from wing-forward he did the damage against Limerick, however; a most unlikely position in the modern game for a man of his stature: a bit like playing Stringer in the back row for Munster.
“I’m not exactly the big target-man you’d expect at half-forward, am I?” he grins, “But I like working off lads, being the support player, a link.”
Was he given that role specifically against Limerick, helping out midfield, his club position?
“No, but I’m not given any other role either. You have your own area to win and if you can get on top there, you can roam, maybe into the corner, out the field — move around.”
As he did for that goal?
“Yes, but it doesn’t happen too often, I don’t get too many of those. Declan did the work for that goal, it’s the fella who fights hard to release the ball should get the praise. But I’m not being given a specific roaming job.”
Well, he’ll probably have one tomorrow. While he would be seen by most as being more suited, because of his size, to the corner, Clancy is more a runner than a score-poacher, an athlete. Don’t be surprised if his stay in the corner is short — don’t be surprised if all the announced changes in the re-jigged Clare forward line are changed again, even before the whistle sounds. Jonathon Clancy confined to his box for 70 minutes? Hardly likely.
He’s been around the Clare scene for some time, was flagged as a rising star many years ago when he helped his club, Clarecastle, to yet another senior county title. A suggestion, however, that he’s taken his time about coming through is met with a subtle but sure volleyed return.
“This is my fourth year on the panel. I am a small bit more established this year, but I don’t really know the answer to that one. I’m still only 22. I came straight into the panel out of minor, and the chances I’ve had over the years, I think I did reasonably well.
“Sometimes you find yourself on the periphery of a game with the ball going over and back but always over your head, and those games are very frustrating, but I’m happy enough with the way things are going.”
He’s right, of course; age 22, four years on your county’s senior hurling panel, established, every year a progression from the last, why wouldn’t he be happy? This is new territory again for him now, a Munster final. The last time Clare were in this position was 1999, beaten by Cork; from that team, just three — Frank Lohan, Colin Lynch and Niall Gilligan — survive, meaning Jonathon and 11 of his team-mates get their baptism tomorrow. A big occasion, then.
“A Munster final is probably not a big thing any more to the likes of Cork and Waterford, but it’s still a big occasion in Clare, something we wouldn’t experience too often.
“It’s been an enjoyable couple of weeks, the buzz is building a bit, a lot of hype that hasn’t been there for a few years, though it’s not like the old days, not yet anyway. Hopefully we can restore some of that to the county. It’s not every day a Clare team gets to a Munster final, you have to enjoy these days.”
Unlike a lot of people, even inside Clare, Jonathon isn’t at all surprised to find himself in this situation. When the draw was made last year, Clare were written off as likely title contenders almost straight off. Waterford in the first round, and in the extremely unlikely event of getting past that, Limerick to follow? Not a hope, that was the common perception, reflected in every bookies’ odds.
Yet here they are: “We started back to training very early; you only get back what you’ve put in and we’ve put in an awful lot, hopefully we’ll get a lot back. We wouldn’t have been fancied to get over Waterford, probably the form team of last year, unlucky not to have won the All-Ireland, and then Limerick, the surprise package of last year.
“But we weren’t looking past Waterford or anything like that, we trained for the Waterford game, then see what comes afterwards — take every day as it comes, and the next day is no different.”
As for the surprise: “Personally, no, I believe in what we’re trying to do here, there’s a lot of good young talent in the county, but I suppose a lot of people outside the county are surprised alright.
“The league game against Tipperary was probably a turning point for us, I think people started to believe in us. That was our toughest league game outside of the Limerick game, where we didn’t really do ourselves justice. Coming into the Tipperary game there was a bit of extra pressure, we could have found ourselves in the relegation zone if we didn’t get something out of that, and we did.”
And so here he is, big day looming. He’s cool, calm, ready for the next stage in his hurling development (ready also for the next stage of his work career, Accounting and Finance qualification from LIT in hand, looking at an accountancy career). What odds on another game-breaking goal?
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