Blue fly the banners in quiet Clare revolution
SUPER 8 WILL MAKE THE TOP TABLE MORE OF A CLOSED SHOP
THE most substantial story of this year’s National Football League happened off-Broadway. When Clare footballers beat Cork for the first time in 20 years, the weekend held so many other distractions (such as Mayo’s meltdown in Croke Park and the war of words in Roscommon) that few noticed.
That suited Colm Collins just fine. As the architect of this quiet revolution, he’s happy for his team to remain unnoticed if the graph keeps going upward. Since he took over in 2014, it has been about small steps. Climb out of Division 4. Target promotion from Division 3.
When the players set the goal of a run through the qualifiers, more did sit up and take notice, especially as it led to an All-Ireland quarter-final in Croke Park against Kerry. The subsequent disappointing display meant, to some, that Clare have reverted to type.
‘Does it upset me that we aren’t getting credit? No it doesn’t. We will just keep doing what we are doing and hopefully people will sit up and take notice,’ Collins said during the week.
It was Wednesday afternoon, two days before Collins was scheduled for a trip to Croke Park to watch four of his football squad, including Gary Brennan, play for Ballyea in the club hurling final. The most remarkable aspect of their eight-point win over Cork was that it was achieved without Brennan. When Clare got pummelled by Galway in the previous round, it enhanced the view that no football team depend on one player more than the Banner do on their masterful midfielder. That perception was blown out of the water. ‘It was a nice boost to beat Cork, without Gary. But it was a nice boost just to beat Cork. Clare haven’t done that too often,’ Collins says. Not for 20 years in senior football. It was just one of the milestones they’ve been quietly building up under the Cratloe man. But even if Clare are looking up towards Division 1, rather than down to Division 3, Collins (left) isn’t getting carried away. ‘We were tipped to be relegated before a ball was kicked but that is nothing new. We were tipped to get relegated when we were in Division 3. ‘So we aren’t paying any attention to what people are saying. We are just looking at the next game and what the next target is within the group. That is how we have approached this thing from day one, when we were in Division 4. Inside the group, we aren’t thinking of Cork or promotion. All we’ve focused on this week is the green jersey of Fermanagh.’
It has served Collins and Clare well. While he lost the services of his son Podge this year, as he concentrates solely on hurling, Collins insists there is plenty of ambition within the group. And while he is quiet as to what the ultimate goal is, there is a sense they want to rectify what happened last August.
Travelling to Brewster Park today brings Clare face to face with a team that is almost a mirror image. Under the canny Pete McGrath, Fermanagh have been making the most of their own resources. The Ernesiders have continually punched above their weight. Collins admits there is mutual respect.
‘There would be an affinity. Neither of us have a massive pick, and we are trying to do the best we can with what we have. But Pete McGrath has done an excellent job, and they are to be admired.’
Collins has thought outside the box in an effort to increase the pool of players. Football is generally confined to west Clare, and has drafted in Shane McGrath, a Dublin-born player with Clare parentage. Someone else with Clare ancestry was Mick Bohan, a former coach in Jim Gavin’s Dublin backroom team, hired as skills coach last year. However, Bohan left this winter, replaced by Alan Finn. Collins says the change was seamless.
When Paraic Duffy released his Super Eight proposals last summer, Collins was one of the loudest critics of the Championship model. His concerns weren’t heeded. Even though the proposals have come to pass, Collins’ concerns about where it will lead in the football Championship haven’t been quelled.
‘I think we have a lot more pressing problems in the GAA than any which might have been solved by the Super Eight,’ Collins explains. ‘It is difficult to see this model, which will only benefit the top teams, as being motivated by anything other than money and it will just make the top table in football even more of a closed-shop.
‘For Clare and Fermanagh, if we do get to the Super Eight, we have little chance of progressing because even if we catch one of the big boys on one day, we won’t catch another big boy on the second or third day. The four All-Ireland semi-finalists are going to be very predictable. Is that good for the game?’ he asks.
‘A far more pressing problem is that the vast majority of intercounty squads have no meaningful matches to play beyond the first or second week in July. The excuse was that the counties don’t want a B championship but the counties don’t want a B championship that is only an afterthought and not treated as a proper competition.
‘If the GAA were serious about having a two-tier championship, then the B championship would be run off in conjunction with the latter stages of the A championship. There would be an All-Star scheme, and even the same All-Star trip for the players in the B championships, where the two All-Star teams could play each other. And the B final would be the curtain-raiser to the All-Ireland final. If it was done properly, of course counties would go for a B championship.’
Collins has been banging this drum for long before Clare started their climb up football’s ladder. And he believes that League standings should be the cut-off: Division 1 and 2 teams in A, 3 and 4 in B.
‘I know people will say it is easy for me to say that, standing in Division 2. But we were in Division 4 not so long ago and if it was a properly-run B championship, where teams were treated with respect, everyone would play in it.’
Given the strides Clare have made, Colm Collins deserves to be heard. If he takes the Banner into Division 1, people will have to start taking notice of what he is saying – and what his team are doing.