The Kieran Shannon interview: Colin Ryan on life after Clare hurling

Colin Ryan shocked Clare hurling fans when he opted out of the senior panel for this season. He’ll watch his former colleagues play Limerick tomorrow. But he won his All-Ireland last week. Playing soccer.

Tomorrow in Thurles, when the Clare hurlers finally take to the field in their quest for another Celtic Cross, a very recent colleague of theirs will watch on from the stands having already secured his All-Ireland medal for the year.

Last weekend, Colin Ryan made the long journey up to Buncrana as a member of another Clare team. Junior soccer in this country has its own inter-county competition, the Oscar Traynor Cup, and though this was the first season that he had been able to play the sport after Christmas since breaking onto the Clare senior hurling panel a decade ago as a teenager, Ryan had been an automatic selection from their first game right up to last week’s final.