No going back to dark days

“I honestly think Liverpool will win the league,” said Clare’s powerhouse half-forward John Conlon this week.

“Everything is behind them at the moment. You obviously need that bit of luck as well. You know, Countinho’s goal the other day. They needed that ball to break off Kompany to come to him.”

No, John isn’t a Liverpool supporter nor even a committed fan of the Premier League though he admits to a passing interest in Manchester United. He was using Liverpool and that win over Manchester City in their current run to the cusp of winning their first Premier League title to illustrate Clare’s own run to All-Ireland glory last year.

“It was the same for us,” he said, “we needed that bit of luck.

“We got on a bit of roll, played Laois the first day, Wexford the next day and we could easily have lost that game. It was a good sign of the team to come out and win well in extra-time. For the Galway game we’d worked hard for a few weeks on a game-plan and it worked.

“And then we played Limerick. I only live out the road in Clonlara on the border and to be honest with you, you wouldn’t have even thought there was a game going on in Clare. You’d arrive into Limerick and flags everywhere. Walking into the butchers and ‘You play for Clare? Ah they’re going to hammer ye!’. This from lads that probably didn’t even look at a hurling game. Back into Clare then and there wasn’t a flag out.

“We just knew... you’re amateur players, it has to get into your psyche. We were looking forward to that game and very comfortable that there wasn’t much pressure on us and all the pressure was on Limerick. Things fell into place all the way along.”

So it was that Clare went on to reach the All-Ireland final. So it was also that they met a Cork team made-to-measure for them, a team that would go toe-to-toe and slug it out. Had it been Dublin, a more battle-hardened and seasoned side, reduced to 14 men at a critical stage in the second half in the loss to Cork, well, who knows? As it was, and as pointed out by John, everything fell into place and Clare were crowned champions.

As one of the veterans on the team at just 24 it took the big man a little by surprise.

“If you’d said this time last year that we’d win an All-Ireland, I’d have taken your hand off. I don’t think anybody really expected us to. I think we had the potential but the big thing was confidence in where were we at.

“I think the best thing that happened to us was losing to Cork [Munster semi-final]. We got a few games under our belt and the more matches you get, the more you want. As the summer went on, you all know what happened and we kept rolling. That confidence, everyone is full of confidence on the panel.”

For John himself though, and facing into tomorrow’s league semi-final against Tipperary, the memory of earlier years when it seemed like Clare couldn’t buy a win even in the first round in Munster are still fresh.

“There aren’t many of us left now but every day we go out, I think back. It took me seven or eight games to win a championship match. I was three years or four years on the panel and we won nothing. They were the bad days and now we have great days.

“I remember them but a few of the younger lads, Tony Kelly and all the lads that have come in, Colm Galvin and those, they don’t realise the bad days we did have. They never experienced them. They never experienced them underage either [Clare have won three All-Ireland U21 titles in the last five seasons]. I always think of those days and that will push me to be the best I can be and push the older lads on the panel.

“We’d be always reminding the younger lads, and so would Davy, that we don’t want to go back down there, we want to stay at the top and that’s our big goal.”