Mulqueen: Clare driven to win on and off pitch

Clare’s player strengths lie in the fact that they are high achievers on the field and off it, according to the county’s coach Louis Mulqueen.

His day job is the role of principal at Rice College in Ennis so he knows how.

“You see what they’re doing in life, in college, it transfers to exams,” he said.

“This group of lads really want to do well in life and I saw that when we were going around with the [Liam MacCarthy] cup to the clubs. These guys have that respect up front and people were coming up to me afterwards, ‘Aren’t they lovely fellas, great values, great morals’.

“That transfers to the pitch. They’re high achievers but also good clean-living people. When you have that, it transposes to playing at your best level. They want to achieve as much as they can.

“You’ve got to watch your diet, your training, your lifestyle and then you’ll get the best from yourself. That’s what these lads have. You take the last two years; they’ve watched themselves with diet, drink, socialising and so on. Switching back in January when they had achieved their goal [winning last year’s All-Ireland title] wasn’t a big task because they knew what they wanted.

“They stick to their regime. They have a code of conduct, all those things go in place. They made the switch themselves. It’s automatic. It’s in them. If you had that in school, where kids nearly teach themselves. It’s discipline, it’s a code of conduct and if you have that in a set-up like that, it’s a dream to have.

“They want it. They’ll do it and you don’t even have to police and enforce it because if it goes wrong, they’ll fix it for you.”

All that self-discipline manifests in other ways, in the mental strength of the side for example. A young side, the youngest ever to win an All-Ireland senior title in hurling or football, they are also so mature and never panic or lose their composure.

“It’s always been a fabulous quality that this panel has. No matter what happens us we’re going to give it everything. If someone scores one goal, two goals, it’s our job to come back. Mental strength was very good last year but 2014 is a new year. We’re hoping to continue it. We’re hoping to improve on it. I think this team can get better, there’s more development in this team.

“You can’t tell me that these young lads are at their peak at 19, 21 and 24. These lads are self-driven. All management does is put a structure in place and if people don’t adhere to those structures the whole system breaks down. But these lads aren’t like young lads at school that you have to keep checking, these lads are doing this themselves, they see the big picture, they see the goal and they want to achieve. That’s what Clare has a at the moment, that desire, that passion to win, to play for their county at the top level.”

That passion is there in abundance this week as they get ready for their first championship outing, a Munster semi-final against Cork. It’s a repeat of last year’s game which they lost but also a repeat of last year’s All-Ireland final which they won after a replay.

“If you’re a player you want to be playing. We haven’t had a big game yet. Our first game will be that match. You have to be looking forward to it.”