THE BANNER’S BURDEN
Clare hurlers put too much pressure on themselves to rescale the heights of their 2013 All-Ireland success and that’s proved their difficulty, says ex-captain Donnellan
PAT DONNELLAN hasn’t missed it. Not yet. He was glad to leave the grind behind, slogging away in the winter mud. And even during the Allianz League, he didn’t find himself yearning to be out there. But this afternoon will be the test.
When he watches his former Clare team-mates run on to the field from his seat in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, it will be only natural to feel a pang or two.
‘I haven’t missed it, haven’t missed the training sessions in the winter and that whole slog,’ says the 2013 All-Ireland winning captain. ‘But this might be different. It will probably feel a bit strange to be outside the white lines on Championship day.’
Donnellan wasn’t the only All-Ireland winner to retire over the winter. Brendan Bugler and Colin Ryan also hung up their inter-county hurls. The three of them will all be in Cork this afternoon and the conversation may turn to that 2013 final and everything that has happened since then.
As Jamesie O’Connor remarked last week, the great imponderable about Clare is how a team that played with such verve in Croke Park in 2013 haven’t made it back there since. When they captured the All-Ireland in such thrilling style, the sense was that this Clare team – given their age profile – were here to stay. Instead, they fell from their perch as quickly as they climbed onto it.
‘It is a strange one,’ Donnellan admits. ‘And it is something that we do talk about, whether we capitalised on the talent that was there. If you could find out the reason why, you would become a rich person.
‘There is a mixture of things. We probably tried a little too hard to get to the level we were at in 2013. That definitely played a part, especially in the year after we won the All-Ireland when maybe we should have taken a step back because we had already reached a level that was good enough to win, maybe we should have just maintained that level. ‘Maybe we were trying too hard, working even harder the following year. And perhaps we put too much into the early part of the year, that was certainly a factor.
‘Whereas other teams were working up to a gradual peak in July and August, we were trying to peak for every game from January to July,’ Donnellan observes.
‘If you do that, then it is only natural your consistency will suffer. But the thing was that the team were not perform- ing as they did in 2013, so there was a drive among the players to work harder earlier in the year. But reflecting now, maybe that backfired on us. It is a hard one to put your finger on.’ It has been suggested that maybe too much was expected of the Clare team but Donnellan refuses to accept that theory. ‘Winning creates expectation and no matter what people were expecting of us outside the group, it was nothing compared to what we expected of ourselves, internally.’ It is fitting that Clare’s first game in the revamped Munster Championship is against Cork, not just because it was the Rebels that they beat in the 2013 All-Ireland final but also because it is a county that seems to have the Indian sign over the Banner County.
Cork have won the three Championship games since that All-Ireland success.
‘The record speaks for itself, we have a poor record in Munster, especially against Cork,’ Donnellan says.
But with Munster hurling entering uncharted territory with its roundrobin Championship, perhaps now is the time to redress the poor record, especially as they have two games at Cusack Park.
In his 12 seasons hurling for Clare, Donnellan never experienced a Munster Championship day at the Ennis venue, but their record in the qualifiers proves that the venue can be a fortress.
‘We had a pretty good record in the qualifiers at Cusack Park, so you would hope that the team can replicate that for the Munster Championship. It is a great venue to play in – a little like playing at the old Highbury when the whole crowd seems to be on top of you. Maybe it is difficult for teams to come and play in, but it is a great venue for the home team.
‘And with this new format, I think teams will have to approach it as teams approach the Champions League – where the idea is to win your home games and look at nicking a point or two away from home.
‘And I think Clare have an advantage with Cusack Park, same as Dublin have with Parnell Park, because players in Munster are used to playing in Semple Stadium and the Gaelic Grounds, so it won’t be as much a home-venue advantage for those teams.’ And as Donal Maloney and Gerry O’Connor search for the formula to make Clare more consistent, Donnellan sees the new format as favouring his former teammates.
‘Definitely. Because the way it is, you don’t have too long to dwell on a bad performance or defeat, because you have to focus almost immediately on the next game. That might help Clare get some consistency.’
And even if the feeling remains that Clare should have won more, Donnellan still have the memory of that magical Saturday evening in September when he emulated Anthony Daly and lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup. ‘If that was my only memory from my whole playing career, that would be enough,’ he states. ‘For me to go from watching Anthony Daly lift the cup when I was growing up to do it myself, to do it for my club and my family. ‘It was incredible, all of my dreams came true in that one moment.’ The remarkable thing is that Clare haven’t got back to headquarters since that outpouring of emotion on that evening five years ago. And nobody quite knows the reason why but Donnellan will be optimistic as he heads for Cork this morning to experience his first Championship game as a former Clare player. ‘I would always be optimistic with the quality and talent of players that we have in Clare,’ says Donnellan. And perhaps this is the summer that those players will start delivering on their undoubted promise again.