From Miltown Malbay massacre to 1992 ... and now for a new chapter
WHATEVER about cows not being milked in Clare back in 1992, I was just thankful there was no family cat in Ard A Bothair that afternoon as he might have taken a kicking. I watched that Munster final sitting alongside the then recently retired Páidí and I don’t think I ever saw him more disgusted with the outcome of a game.
You might call this Kerry arrogance but Páidí was one of the Kingdom players with Clare blood on his hands after the Miltown Malbay massacre in 1979 when they beat the Banner 9-21 to 1-9. That result prompted the Munster Council to give Kerry a bye into the Munster final the following year.
And he simply struggled to comprehend, on the basis of his own experience, how Kerry could lose to Clare in a Munster final.
But if 1979 was the low point and 1992 the highlight, today is perhaps the most important game Clare have played in the intervening 29 years.
That is some claim, I know, but it is a measure of how Clare football has evolved under the eight years of Colm Collins’ stewardship.
The days when Clare gauged their wellbeing by how they performed in the Munster SFC belongs to the past.
Collins has consistently implored the GAA to introduce an alternative Championship structure rather than imprisoning them in a provincial system where they inevitability keep banging their heads off a Kerry wall.
When they meet in Killarney in a fortnight, it will be their seventh time – including the 2016 AllIreland quarter-final – to clash in the Championship in eight years.
I am not saying it will be an exercise in futility for Clare but it is revealing that Kerry probably had their two eyes fixed on the Banner when playing Tyrone last night.
In contrast, Collins made no bones about where his focus lay this week – he said he was going ‘bullheaded’ for Mayo.
Unlike a lop-sided Championship structure, the League has validated the great work Collins has done with his team. They are now 70 minutes from Division 1 football for the first time since 1996.
IF THEY can beat Mayo today, it will do their confidence no harm at all when it comes to that Kerry match on Saturday week. The growing confidence in Clare has been evident in recent years and to the point that every time Kerry have played them in Ennis, they have had to fight tooth-andnail for a result.
Clare’s ill-luck is that their Championship clash is in Killarney this year but their good fortune is that they invite Mayo into their Cusack Park home today.
It is not just about home comforts, every year Clare appear to get stronger and stronger.
That holds true this year, despite the retirements of veteran defender Gordon Kelly and headline talent over the past decade, Gary Brennan. But there is a genuine depth of quality in the team and while, of course, Brennan was a huge influence, his midfield partner Cathal O’Connor has been just as crucial in recent seasons.
It reminds me a little of how Seamus Scanlon was forced to live in Darragh’s shadow before he retired, but when Seamus got the stage to himself he proved he was far more than a pillion passenger in midfield.
The same thing is happening with O’Connor, one of the under-rated midfielders in the game right now, capable of giving Clare a ballwinning platform in the midfield.
They can sting as well. I did not need to read that David Tubridy broke the all-time individual scoring record in the League to recognise just how good he has been.
His quality had been matched by his longevity – he is obviously a student of Ryan Giggs, having turned to yoga to extend his inter-county career – and when you add to the scoring threat Eoin Cleary provides, this is a team that can draw blood.
Enough, then, to bleed Mayo dry? Alas – and I genuinely would love to see Clare playing in Division 1 next year – John O’Rourke’s point for Cork last time out denied them a draw and may well have sealed their fate.
Had they drawn Meath in the promotion play-off, I would have fancied them because they were unfortunate to lose to the Royals in the 2019 All-Ireland qualifiers, and I suspect they have long closed the miserly one-point gap that was between them that day.
Mayo represent a different challenge; they are a Division 1 team wearing a Division 2 badge. They are a top-six team and Clare are merely trying to get into the top eight, but the chasm between the top six and top eight is far bigger than two places.
They have also evolved in James Horan’s second coming, they are full of youthful verve and hardnosed experience.
Lee Keegan has been moved to the full-back line in recognition that Paddy Durcan is now their half-back leader, Matthew Ruane is back up to full speed in the middle, while Cillian O’Connor is a high-end natural finisher.
On that basis, they will win a tight game but that does not have to be the end of the story for Clare.
It is ironic that the Banner hurlers have not matched the footballers’ consistency this season, yet a longer summer beckons for them. Tony Kelly scored a ridiculous 20 points against Dublin and the chances are, with a qualifier safety net in hurling, he will enjoy a far longer summer than his clubmates Cillian Brennan and Pearse Lillis.
On that they might prove us wrong yet against Kerry but Clare need a new way and they can be given that this autumn if delegates at Special Congress provide a league championship structure to allow teams to break free from a system designed to kill ambition.