Brian Lohan welcomes tweak to championship schedule

Clare and Cork won’t have to play three championship games over the same number of weekends as a result of the Munster Council’s decision to rearrange the competition’s schedule.

Clare manager Brian Lohan 

Clare manager Brian Lohan doesn’t feel the scheduling of their Munster championship clash with Cork for Thurles rather than Páirc Uí Rinn will have a major impact on his side.

The Wolfe Tones clubman said of the fixture change: “I don’t know if it has much of an impact on us. I presume from a Cork perspective it’s a disadvantage to be moving out of Cork, but for us it doesn’t really have a massive effect on us.” 

The game will be played two weeks earlier than was originally planned, but Lohan said: “The alternative was three games in a row and from our perspective, having suffered last year and the year before from having three matches on the trot, we would prefer to have everyone being on a level playing field, with two games and a break rather than a third game in a row against opposition which had a break the previous week.

"That’s how I’d see it - these championship games are very attritional, they’re tough on the players mentally and physically and they need a break. It’s tough going week after week, never mind week after week after week.” 

Clare begin their national league campaign this weekend against those same championship opponents, taking on Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday night with what Lohan expects to be an “experimental” side.

“We’re under pressure injury wise at the moment. We’ve had a number of guys who’ve had to get niggling injuries sorted out, who’ve had to get operations, and those may take a month or six weeks to get sorted.

“So we’re under a bit of pressure. We’re without Tony (Kelly), while David Fitzgerald, Peter Duggan and John Conlon are all sidelined at the moment with injuries, and all are in their rehab programmes trying to get themselves right.

“We won’t have Aidan McCarthy, he’s a much longer-term injury, but we hope to see the other guys later on in the league. And Shane O’Donnell has concussion issues, so he’s not available. You don’t want a scenario where you have to introduce too many young fellas at once, but unfortunately that may be the case for us. You’d prefer to have to bring those guys in with some more experienced fellas who’ve been on the panel for a few years, but for us it’s going to be experimental for the first couple of the rounds of the league at least.”