Over a century on, Clare will hope history repeats itself in Munster final

This year is the first time since 1917 that Clare has reached three successive Munster finals. 108 years ago, they put the lessons of two previous defeats to good use when they put five goals past Cork in the decider. 

Last year, Cusack Park hosted its first Munster SFC final since 1919. This year's game will be the first Kerry v Clare decider in Killarney since 1929. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

In a series of feature articles carried in the Clare Journal newspaper in 1907, Clare football was painted in a very poor light. Losing was a habit but results were irrelevant in the eyes of the authors. The crude methods Clare had adopted to playing the game by ‘going for the man’ were a black stain on the county’s footballing culture.

“What have we gained from our unmanliness?” the question was asked in one of those articles. “Nothing. We have lost everything. Whether we are to go on losing or not depends on ourselves. If we are to field better teams than Clare has done hitherto, we just devote more of our time to science than to brute force.”