Hurt Hogan sure Clare can park spring pain to make Ennis fortress again

The 2024 Young Hurler of the Year Adam Hogan insists Clare can rebound from Allianz HL relegation.

Fri, 21 Mar, 2025 - 07:02

John Fogarty

With tongue firmly lodged in cheek, Clare selector Ken Ralph spoke last month of trying to win a few league games after a surprise home loss to Wexford. “Limerick next week so hopefully that will be a handy one for us and hopefully we’ll kick on from there against Cork then, the other team that’s going to be in the All-Ireland final.”

As their relegation from Division 1A was confirmed last Saturday, the All-Ireland champions haven’t been playing like a team motivated by the vaunted talk of their Munster rivals but it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The 2024 Young Hurler of the Year Adam Hogan can understand the predictions but points out it’s early yet. “It's kind of right that everyone is talking about Limerick, Cork. They're doing well in the league and we're not so it's fair enough.

“In terms of the group we're confident in our abilities, so I think that's the only thing that matters. Whatever happens outside the group and whoever the media are talking about, they can talk about but the main thing is that we know what to do to get over the line in championship games. Let’s see come the championship.”

It's not that Hogan is dismissing the six goals Clare coughed up against Cork in Ennis earlier this month. That and subsequent relegation to Division 1B next season stings but it doesn’t have to define their season.

“Thank God it happened now and not in five weeks’ time in the Championship,” he said of the defeat to Cork. “Still, it was a bad result and we were disappointed, but I suppose a good realisation what the level has gone to and how good Cork are.”

For a defender who, along with Conor Leen, was excellent the previous weekend in Limerick, the scoreline was pretty humbling for Hogan. “In my position as corner back, you're in the nearest line to the goal so yeah, it kind of hurt us as a back unit.

“We pride ourselves on not letting lads have easy goals and, to be honest, they did get easy goals and we looked back at the footage and we have massive areas of improvement to get right for Easter Sunday.”

The reality that Clare won’t be facing fellow All-Ireland rivals in next year’s league will be parked for now, insists Hogan. “It's all eyes on the Championship in four weeks’ time. That's the good thing about it, we've no time to dwell on it.”

It's not like they haven’t recovered from worse setbacks. “We’ve come back from losing a Munster final last year to winning the All-Ireland, so it shows the grit in the team and we don't stop.”

Losing all three games there, Ennis wasn’t a happy hunting ground for Clare in this league as it hasn’t been in the first round of their last two Munster championships. Refortifying it is an objective, Hogan reports.

“The last two years have been disappointing, losing our first round, so we want to get that right because it's such a good atmosphere and we want to give the Clare supporters something to cheer about.”

Munster is Clare’s holy grail as Ger Loughnane emphasised at the players’ medal presentation earlier this year. “It's such a hard competition to win as well and it's great to win it but as Ger Loughnane said it's the K2.

“It's one of our goals for the year to win the Munster Championship and hopefully we do it because last time was 1998. Ger Loughnane is a great speaker and he'll really get you motivated to try and do that.”

Saturday’s game against Tipperary is a bona fide dead rubber for both counties but Hogan says Clare will look to take something from it four weeks out from the Cork game.

“We've done a good two weeks’ block of work so it’ll be good to see how we are after that and see are we getting better or do we need to get more improvement on things.”

* Adam Hogan was speaking at the launch of the O’Neills U20 All-Ireland senior hurling championship. It is the sportswear company’s fourth year sponsoring the competition, which begins next Tuesday.