Listen: Dalo on '95: 'My mother was up in the stand with my brother and said ‘what’s he doing?’
Anthony Daly of Clare during the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final between Clare and Offaly at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Not only was Anthony Daly the Clare captain when the county ended a 81-year wait for an All-Ireland senior hurling title 25 years ago today. Not only did he make one of the great winning speeches from the steps of the Hogan Stand. But ‘Dalo’, to most people’s surprise, notably his own mother's, also stood over the last-gasp 65 with Clare and Offaly level.
A few minutes earlier, it was his long-range free that had turned the game when it came back off the crossbar for Eamon Taaffe to rifle home.
On a special bonus Irish Examiner GAA podcast out today, Dalo relives September 3, 1995 and the aftermath, explains the emotion behind that famous speech, and describes what the Croke Park deliverance meant to Clare people.
And he explains why he took that fateful 65 rather than Clare’s regular long-range free-taker Seanie McMahon.
“I hadn’t a puck got after five or six minutes. We got a free way back, and I’d a lovely hurley I was mad about that used to be minded and fixed and repaired.
“I said to Seanie, ‘let me hit this’. So he said ‘grand’, And, Jesus, it went right into the edge of the square and Conor Clancy nearly got a flick to it to put it in the net. And the trajectory went as straight as a die. I was thinking, if I get a few pucks at all, I won’t be afraid to have a go today.”
Late in the game Frank Lohan was fouled coming out of the Clare defence, with his side still trailing Offaly by two points in a low-scoring match.
“The free was probably only about 55 yards out from our own goal so it was debatable if it was scoreable for either of us. We both had fairly good slaps of it. Seanie, obviously, had a straighter slap than I did.
“Frank gave me the ball because he wouldn’t hit it, normally, from back there. And I said to Seanie, ‘I'll hit it’. The bit of a wind caught it and it carried and carried.
“I wasn't aiming at the crossbar and David Hughes probably won't be happy with how he dealt with it, he should have probably flicked it over.
“But down she came and Eamon was still on the field because there was nobody mic’ed up to (referee) Dickie (Murphy) to tell him Clare wanted to make a sub.
“And I often say of the two forwards that were on the field at that stage it needed to fall to Eamon or Sparrow (Ger O’Loughlin). They are the two who would have doubled on that, they have the best hands. Taaffe being the natural striker, the hands of god, he billowed the net.”
That put Clare in front, but Offaly had levelled by the time Clare were awarded a 65, with less than two minutes to play.
“Then the 65 came about and you’re feeling, there's something kind of magic here. My mother is 90 now, thank God she’s still with us, she was up in the stand with my brother and she caught him by the arm and said ‘what’s he doing?’.
“I looked at Seanie and he kind of said ‘yeah?’, and I said, ‘yeah give it to me’. I think he kind of looked in my eyes and said this fella is wired, he’s going to score this.
“Hubert Rigney was down injured so there was a delay. And Daíthí mór Regan and myself used have the odd chat on the field, and it wasn’t always complimentary, but in a very nice tone he said, ‘arra Dalo we might as well have a second day out of it. There wasn’t a draw since ‘59, it'll be a great day out again for the Clare and Offaly people’.
“I said, ‘sure we’ll see, Daithí'. And in some ways it helped me walk away from the ball and talk to him.
“In the meantime Ger (Loughnane) had made his way across the field, and he asked me ‘are you sure’. And I said, I better not be watery with the answer, and I said ‘certain’.
“Jesus, if it went wide. The ramifications were only hitting me when I sobered up around Wednesday or Thursday.
“Whatever it was on the day I got myself into a great old place mentally, and I was kind of in flow, The task was to mark Johnny (Dooley) first of all, and that had gone okay, he got a point. And then when the goal went off the crossbar, I thought maybe there's something in the stars here.
“Didn't we all dream of hitting a free to win an All-Ireland in the back garden when we were five or six? There it was in front of me and was I going to baulk or not?”
The free went over and Jamesie O’Connor added another free with the last puck to seal victory. But Dalo still isn’t entirely sure where his calm and certainty came from.
“A month later I was invited to dinner dances and you’d be coming up to do the speech in front of 300 and you’d be bricking it.
“We had to play championship against Doora Barefield the following Sunday. A massive crowd turned up, 8000/9000.
“And we got a free to win it, central, middle of the field, And I shouted out at James Healy, our close-in free taker, to come out and take it.
“They were all looking back at me. Maybe it was a consequence of the week that the nerves weren’t great, but James nailed it anyway and we got over that.
“They were all looking at me in the dressing room afterwards saying ‘you could take it in the All-Ireland but you couldn't take it in the first round of the club.
“I said, ’no, because ye’d have given me a worse doing than the Clare crowd'.”
-- Spotify
-- Soundcloud
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
