O’Keeffe back in the big time
He threw his lot in with Clooney-Quin, his local club, but the football declined after they’d won an intermediate hurling title, so he ended up with another hurling club — St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield.
However, the 1999 All-Ireland club hurling champions take football pretty seriously, and now O’Keeffe is preparing for a Clare SFC final tomorrow.
“I moved to Clare six or seven years ago and after the football petered out (with Clooney-Quin), Joe Hanrahan, who was training Doora-Barefield, invited me in to play for them. To be honest I was just trying to keep fit, so a county final’s a bonus.”
O’Keeffe says there’s a good quality of club football in the Banner County.
“Kilmurry-Ibrickane got to the club final a couple of years ago, so Clare clubs have been up there and the standard is good. Any club getting out of Munster, where you’ve the likes of Nemo Rangers and Dr Crokes, that’s a good testament to them. Maybe the county team doesn’t reflect that, though they’re trying to build it back up to the early 90s, when they were in Division One.”
In Christy O’Connor’s The Club, written about St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield, there’s more than a hint of tension within the club about football taking over from hurling.
O’Keeffe doesn’t claim an intimate knowledge of the politics but points out that that’s hardly unusual in clubs which play both codes.
“I suppose there’d a bit of jostling for position but that’d happen in a lot of dual clubs anyway. The youngsters on the team tomorrow would have won more in football coming up the grades, and that’s coming through now.
“And in fairness, the entire club is behind the senior football team — there’s great colour around the place and the support for all the players has been first class.”
As an outsider, O’Keeffe’s heard a few salty suggestions from opponents in recent games. He can retaliate in kind, however.
“I wouldn’t repeat a lot of what’s been said, but I’ve told them that if you play in front of the Blackrock End in Páirc Uí Chaoimh or Killarney in a few Munster finals you’d know about reactions!
“I had a great relationship with the Cork support, and that never bothered me then and wouldn’t bother me now.
“It’s all part of it and there wouldn’t be any real animosity there, certainly.”
He’s realistic about their chances tomorrow against Kilmurry-Ibrickane, most people’s fancy for the title.
“We’re delighted to be there, particularly given where we came from. There’s four groups of four in the Clare senior championship, with group games, and coming to the last group game we were last in our group. We needed to win by a certain score and needed another result to go our way, and that happened for us.
“We beat Doonbeg in the quarter-final so we’ve risen from the ashes, really.
“One of the younger lads in the club, Niall White, died earlier in the year, and that took a lot out of the lads — it probably took them a long time to get over it, and maybe in the last few weeks they’ve come out of themselves a bit.
“The challenge is huge — Kilmurry-Ibrickane would have very good players like Odhran O’Dwyer, the Coughlans, very experienced lads who’ve played in All-Ireland club finals.
“We’re just hoping our lads can do themselves justice on the day and that we can give a good account of ourselves. It’d be great if we could get a result but we’re definitely up against it.”
*Clare SFC final: St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield v Kilmurry-Ibrickane, Cusack Park, Ennis, 3.30pm.
