Sink or swim time for Hayes

Sometimes a sportsman escapes the ghetto at the back of the newspaper and makes it to the front, though it isn’t always for the right reasons.

That wasn’t the case a couple of weeks ago for Clare keeper Joe Hayes, when... well, let him tell you about it.

“I was on the way to work in Limerick,” said the garda. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, a girl went into the river.

“I’d be a strong enough swimmer, I have lifesaving courses done so I’d no problem jumping in. If it happened again in the morning I’d do it.

“The week that was in it it turned out the finest, and it turned out the finest a few days later as well.”

It certainly did. Clare turned Limerick over to make the Munster senior football final and Hayes is bullish about their prospects against Cork.

“There’s no question of going down to make up the numbers, there’d be no point in doing that, but we’re no fools at the same time.

“We know this is one of the teams that’s been in the top three for the last few years but we’ll go down and give it a hell of a shot, see what happens.

“We’re going well, training hard and yes, we’ll be huge underdogs, but there’s an underdog in every game. It just happens to be us but we’ll give it a shot.”

The Tuesday after they beat Limerick they trained at 6am. The spirit is good, though Hayes acknowledges their inexperience.

“It’s everyone’s first Munster final bar David Russell and Ger Quinlan. They were there in 2000, but it’s so long since then it’ll be a new experience for them as well.

“But we’re big boys, we’re around a long time, and we have to have the attitude that it’s just another game. We have to forget if there’s a big crowd, or that the cup is sitting up there for the winners.

“Our mindset has to be on what we have to do and give it the best we can.”

Clare have history when it comes to Munster football finals, of course. Hayes can remember 1992, when they beat Kerry.

“My dad brought me, I think it was my first game. I can’t remember too much about it but I remember the scenes afterwards, the homecoming with the open-topped bus and all that.

“That was great for any young fella to watch, and it’s long overdue again. It’d be great to see that again and hopefully we will on Sunday week.

“I was dragged down [onto the field] by my auld fella and 1997 the same. Hopefully Sunday week is the start of something good for Clare again.”

Why haven’t Clare progressed since then?

“I feel belief has a lot to do with it — and luck. There have been so many games that Clare have been unlucky not to win but there have also been games where Clare just didn’t have the belief to win.

“Last year, with Down inside here, while Down didn’t have a great year, it was just a small bit of bad luck — they got the ball off the line at the very end.

“Against Offaly the year before that we were seven points up and just didn’t have the belief to win it. Down through the years belief and luck have been big factors.”

Hayes points to the fact that football is spreading out of its traditional western heartland in the county but admits their poor finish to the league was a blow.

“It was disappointing and we felt sorry for ourselves for a couple of days, and it was hard to lift the heads for a while.

“But we had a good chat about it and we realised the feeling sorry for ourselves was doing us no good. We wanted promotion, that was our first goal for the year and we came up short.

“But we took positives out of it.

“Two years ago we were in a similar position but probably didn’t deserve to be in that position, winning games we didn’t deserve to win.

“This year was different but hats off to Wicklow. We brought it back to six points in that game but they pushed it on. No complaints. We just fell short on the day.”

Like his county men, Hayes is strongly against proposals to seed the Munster draw again, pointing out the open draw gives players a “spring in their step”.

“When you see a draw like that it gives you a boost. You’re going to training with an extra spring in your step. That’s not to say you wouldn’t go down to try to beat Cork or Kerry, but the other draw is an incentive to young fellas not to go to America, to stay on and play.

“I’d be very disappointed if it were changed. Every ‘weaker’ county, so-called, deserves its day in the sun. I hope it doesn’t happen and I hope the four counties involved stand up and don’t let it happen.”

Last time they voted in favour.

“One of them did, I don’t know why because that’s not what their senior footballers are trying to achieve. I know our county won’t [vote that way], especially after this year. I hope it doesn’t happen in the future either.”