Donnellan urges youth brigade to come good again

IN any hurling team, regardless of grade, the half-back line is the foundation – a truism.

This is Ger O’Loughlin’s first year at the helm in Clare and he took over a team in turmoil, one that had failed to win a single competitive game in 2009 until their last, a relegation playoff that subsequently proved meaningless when relegation was put on hold for three years. In that same season, however, Clare won its first All-Ireland U21 title, and on that team Ger began his rebuilding process. A few weeks ago, in every line of the Clare side that put up a great fight before losing to a late flurry of points against hot favourites Waterford in the Munster semi-final, there was a member of that U21 team – bar one: the half-back line.

Since making his debut in the Munster semi-final against Tipperary in 2005, Diarmuid McMahon has been an ever-present on the Clare team. He was centre-forward then but now, like his famous first-cousin, he mans the central pivot. Alongside McMahon, two 25-yr-olds, Brendan Bugler and Patrick Donnellan from the Whitegate and O’Callaghan’s Mills clubs respectively.