AFTER THE CLAREOUT...
Banner’s new management must revive a sunken squad
WHEN they gather in Cusack Park this afternoon, talk will be of a new departure. The buzz in the Banner County this week is how the new management team will be the breath of fresh air their collection of talented hurlers badly need, given how stale things had become under Davy Fitzgerald’s manic direction.
In one respect, Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor do represent a fresh start as they are the first management since Ger Loughnane’s warriors made the historic breakthrough in the mid-1990s not to have any link to the ’95 set-up. Neither of them were inside Loughnane’s dressing-room which contained the previous six Clare managers.
Instead of delving into that glorious part of their past, they have secured the sevices of two men who have tried to build a golden future with their combined underage record of five Munster titles and three All-Ireland crowns.
Even if the Clare players have got the new direction they have craved, though, the voices they hear will be familiar to most of them. But those nurtured and developed by Moloney and O’Connor are grown up now and the pari will find it’s more challenging to mould an adult panel.
It is why successful underage managers are occasionally unable to repeat the trick at senior level. Dave Keane at Limerick is the clearest example of that. Having led them to three Under-21 All-Irelands in early 2000s, his senior tenure ended in acrimiony.
Then there is the Paul Kinnerk factor. Whenever the subject of their remarkable success at U21 level was broached, Moloney and O’Connor were unassuming enough to deflect to Kinnerk, who is considered the most influential figure behind the scenes in the Banner hurling revolution.
It was only after being hammered by Waterford in the 2009 Munster semi-final in their first year as minor managers that the pair realised how far off the pace Clare teams were. They were behind in technique, but also in strength and conditioning.
In their search to find a coach, they came across Kinnerk, a Limerick footballer teaching in Shannon. He helped to engender a winning culture and it was no surprise that when Davy Fitzgerald got the senior job in 2012, he took Kinnerk on board.
‘We would be a bit cranky and obsessive,’ O’Connor explained in a 2013 interview. ‘We send out emails with colossal attention to detail. We have organised things, but Paul Kinnerk completely changed the thinking behind Clare hurling. These young players have no baggage. No fear of any jersey. The players believe nobody works harder than them and that is down to Kinnerk.’ But now that Moloney and O’Connor have been rewarded with the top job, they step up without Kinnerk by their side. The Limerick man was the one constant in their success but, next year, he will be helping his native county. It is one of the many interesting sub-plots to next June’s tasty Munster SHC semi-final between the neighbouring counties. It’s believed the decision to retain the services of Dónal Óg Cusack was down to Kinnerk’s absence, although Clare players are understood to have enjoyed the Corkman’s skills sessions this year – one of the few satisfying aspects to the campaign. Lady luck shone on the new management team on Thursday. A local derby with Limerick will always be a tough assignment but they have been afforded a bye in the Munster semi-final, so they only need to win one game to get into a provincial decider. Given Clare’s recent deplorable record in the province, a final appearance will be progress. They’ve only reached one final this century. Not only that but they only won one game inside the province during Fitzgerald’s five seasons in charge. Becoming a force within Munster again must be the first target for Moloney and O’Connor.
It was Seán O’Halloran, the long-standing Clare GAA official, who got O’Connor involved, asking him to take over the Clare U14s at a time when he was revamping the underage structures. That was Cian Dillon’s age group. When they moved to U16, O’Connor asked Moloney to join his management team. It was that group that they went on to win three U21 All-Ireland titles with before O’Connor’s work commitments forced a brief break-up of their management team following the 2014 success. But they were both of similar ilk, both determined to develop the players as people as well as hurlers.
‘There has to be a huge focus on developing the person, how they carry themselves and how they manage themselves outside of hurling,’ Moloney explained of his management philosophy a couple of years ago. It wasn’t just about the game. As their players were all college students, they ensured they focused as much on their academic commitments as their hurling. ‘Developing the players as a whole has always been part of Gerry and Donal’s philosophy,’ O’Halloran explains. ‘It was the philosophy we set out with when we wanted to improve the under-age structures and we couldn’t have wished for two better men to carry that through.’ For two seasons, they also managed the Clare intermediates and it was there that Conor Ryan played his first game at centre-back for the county while David McInerney was tried at full-back. When Clare won Liam MacCarthy in 2013, both players were superb in those positions.
There’s a sense the pair will be a change from what the players had been used to over the past five years. Interestingly, in January 2013, they took the county U21s to Old Trafford, for a Manchester UnitedLiverpool game, reasoning that the majority of the panel support one or the other of the sides. That’s in stark contrast to the previous incumbent insisting that Clare train during Ireland’s Euro 2016 game against Italy during a squad get-together at Breaffy House – believed to be the final straw for many of the players with Fitzgerald.
Moloney and O’Connor will certainly be different to what went before. But success will hinge on the same things. Today in Cusack Park, Tony Kelly will try to inspire Ballyea to their first ever county title. He has been sprinkling his genius all over the Clare championship in recent weeks.
Those gathered in Ennis this afternoon will feel that part of Clare’s new direction will involve getting the most out of one of the most gifted hurlers in the country. But one thing is for sure, Kelly’s days of playing wing-back are at an end.