Watching brief left Colm Galvin gunning for action

“First In, Last Out” is the slogan that adorns the walls of Clare GAA’s Caherlohan training base outside Tulla.

Truth be told, that didn’t apply to Colm Galvin last year. This very date 12 months ago, he was heading over to Boston to play with the Tipperary club after lining out for Clare throughout the league. Two months later and he was back in time to play a bit-part role in the qualifier win over Offaly but had missed out on the crucial Munster semi-final defeat to Limerick.

Pangs of regret hit him as he watched that game in a friend’s house in Boston that May 24 morning. Not that he felt as if he had let his team-mates down. “Me leaving was making room for another fella to step up. Nowadays it’s not a 15-man panel, it’s a 31 or 32-man panel and it’s up to another lad to grab that position and make it his own.”