Final step in Clare recovery?

PREVIEW: Clare v Wexford

It’s a conundrum, one in which even Clare captain Brian O’Connell was in two minds about this week, in advance of tomorrow’s NHL Division Two final against Wexford in Thurles.

He reasoned: “If you look at our results in Division Two this year, we only barely scraped over a few teams, by only a point or two, so maybe the suggestion of a 10-team top division is being unfair to them. I think they’re coming on very well. There was a great crowd for our game against Carlow, in Carlow on a fine day with a great atmosphere.

“I was on the sideline that day so I was very close to the spectators, and they were very keen, very knowledgeable, they really love their hurling, as much as anyone else.

“I think there’s great hope for places like Carlow, Kildare, Westmeath, and playing against the likes of Clare gives them even greater interest – hopefully it will drive them on.

“We’ve met some very good hurlers in all of those teams. Realistically though, you do want to be having Clare and Wexford – and Limerick (relegated this year) – in the top division.

“We are playing a lower standard of hurling in Division Two, and if you get stuck in that standard – like, Wexford are there for the second year in a row this year, and they don’t want to make it three.

“Your standards will drop, and that’s the truth.”

Without question the new format has made the second division very predictable but without question also teams like Carlow, Kildare, Westmeath, have all benefited from playing the likes of Clare and Wexford in meaningful competition.

Perhaps, suggests O’Connell, a 10-team top-tier system in which there was automatic promotion/relegation for one team, then a play-off between the second-placed second division team and the second-from-bottom first division team.

“That would solve a lot of problems, and you’d still have good competition in Division Two.”

Speaking of automatic promotion, does Brian O’Connell find it annoying that, having gone unbeaten through the regular rounds of the league, topped the division (a draw against Wexford in Ennis, the only blemish), if they lose this match Clare will still find themselves in Division Two next year?

Not really, he says: “That’s the way the competition was laid out and we knew the rules and the format from the start of the year, we knew what was ahead of us.

“We can’t complain about that, that’s the nature of the competition, and if we had lost one of those games and finished second, we’d have been praying for this scenario, to still have a chance of promotion.

“We’ve no complaints.”

Regardless of which format is best, however, we have what we have at the moment, and for both Clare and Wexford, this is a massive game, arguably a lot more at stake for these sides than for either Cork or Galway in the main event, which follows their clash.

“It’s massive. At the start of the year we would have set out our goals and this would probably have been number one, we have to get back up to division one, just to keep theinterest going in hurling in Clare.

“Playing at the top level has to be the biggest incentive.

“After winning the U21 All-Ireland title last year there’s a good bunch of talented young lads here now.

“Even if you look at the Fitzgibbon Cup weekend, NUIG (cup winners) had a lot of players from Clare on their panel, and there was a good scatter of Clare hurlers in the other teams involved that weekend, in LIT especially.

“We had a good representation in that competition, but those players need to be playing in the top division now, so definitely, this is an important game for us.

“Championship is in five weeks, the 7th of June, against Waterford, but we can’t afford to look at that yet.

“The league final, that was our goal.

“If we do win it, if we do get promoted, it will be a serious, serious boost to the whole setup in Clare.”