John Conlon 'chipped away' to get back in Brian Lohan's Clare plans

The 36-year-old accepts the county was going in a different direction at the outset of the championship

Clare's John Conlon arrives for the match with Tipperary. Pic: ©INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

John Conlon has revealed he wasn’t part of the Clare management’s first team plans earlier in the season.

The 36-year-old wasn’t used in the opening Munster SHC win over Waterford but came off the bench in the defeat to Limerick earlier this month and was a late addition to the team that eased to victory over Tipperary last Saturday.

His build-up to that game involved a four-point haul for Clonlara eight days before and Conlon was key to the Banner sealing their All-Ireland qualification.

“Look, I felt I was going really well in training the last few weeks, and that’s all you can do,” Conlon told the Clare Champion. “You just keep your head down and keep working, and I suppose, you know, the lads wanted to go in a different direction earlier in the year, and I just knew you would get your chance and to keep your head down and keep chipping away and keep putting your hand up, and eventually they’ll have to look at you.

“After the last game, you knew you were in with a chance of a start, and then you just had to come with everything to the A versus B games.” 

Conlon feels Clare and Cork can play with abandon this week now that they have emerged from the province. “We will treat it as a Munster semi-final now and just try to bring the desire and fight that we brought (v Tipperary). Cork are a serious outfit, they are unbeaten and anything less than our absolute best certainly won’t be good enough.

“There’s no pressure now, as getting out of Munster is always the aim so we can go to Cork and have a right go at them. In the dressing room beforehand (last Saturday) we said to each other, ‘Win this game and we’ll be up for another five weeks of hurling.’” 

Sunday’s game in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a sell-out, which will bring the number of people attending Cork games home and away this year to almost 300,000. A total of 154,119 attended their seven leagues while another 99,734 have been at their three Munster SHC games.

To this point, total attendances in the provincial championship this year are 204,993, which is down on last year’s figure of 211,403. This weekend’s games should see the final figure for the rounds jump to approximately 270,000. Last year’s rounds total came to 285,717.