Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

Boots234

If Limerick beat us in the last game it will probably come down to scoring difference to decide relegation and unfortunately we have yet to go to Dublin and Derry

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120265881#Comment_120265881

Louth have 2 points on the board after yesterday and are an awkward defensive team to play against I could see them beating both Meath who looked clueless at the weekend and Kildare who are no great shakes and finishing on 6 points, Meath are on 4 points and will probably beat limerick giving them 6, Kildare have 2 after yesterday and I would fancy them to beat Meath and Limerick giving them 6. We won't get anything from Dublin or Derry, be hopeful of getting 2 off Limerick and I think Cork have gone up a level and even though it's on in Ennis I wouldn't fancy us to beat them. That would leave us on 4 and relegated with Limerick. That is the stark reality. We will have to beat Cork to survive.

windy shepard henderson

Bar Dublin and Derry this division is open county, cork are a great team to raise their game against the big teams in fairness, there is a lot we could learn from them , they play with zero fear against Dublin's or Kerrys , but in truth they are no better then us , it's a very winnable game

Just a pity we didn't have that same level of confidence when we were 5 points up last week

fire_man

I can't see Clare beating Cork this year.They have improved under new management and have some quality coming through. Could be tough few weeks ahead.

jamesconlan85

By the time Clare play Cork Keelan Sexton, Ciarán Russell, Darren O Neill, Brendy Rouine will all be on starting 15. Likely Ikem will start aswell

So dats 5 starters to come back into contention for dat game dat could be decisive on home ground. Even Cillian Rouine could be back for dat match aswell. Depends what starting 15 Clare have available to them my guess is they will go very strong if all available. No doubt Clare vs Cork is a 4pter for both counties. I can see Louth finishing on 4pts so 6pts will keep Clare in the division

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120284416#Comment_120284416

i wouldnt worry , its always doomsday on here especially in football , i have the same opinion , the next two games are crucial for louth , two games they would fancy themselves in , the last two are against cork home and dublin away . so the next two weeks are huge for micky hartes men

callaway92

A scoreless last 20 minutes + 5 mins added time (last score 49th minute) sees Clare go from leading 1-12 to 0-09 ending up losing 1-12 to 0-16 vs Dublin

windy shepard henderson

Dublin 0-16 Clare 1-12

wining of the game in this one came from a disgraceful call in injury time when ronan lanigan was fouled in midfield and the free awarded to dublin who worked the ball down field for con o'callaghan to fist over 4 minutes in to injury time , otherwise a fantastic performance by our lads ,

dublin in truth deserved the victory , had a strong first 1/4 and strong 4th 1/4 which amounted to 10 of the home sides scores , in the last five minutes we were probably only hanging on

at the 45 minute mark clare lead 1-12 to 10 but the dubs didnt panic and picked clare off on the counter and broke for well taken scores on 5 occasions before the final whistle , from a clare point of view emmet mcmahon , eoin cleary and dermot coughlain were excellent gavin cooney took his goal well before the break to leave it 1-8 to 0-8 at half time

two eire og boys in either corner were also excellent lanigan and manus , the foul on lanigan at the end will infuriate collins as the point would have been a huge result for us , for the best part of the 70 dublin wre in a game and the 20000 or so home supporters looked worried , the better conditioned side won , cork next week is a huge game now for us , disappointed not to get something out of tonight though

clare scorers

Gavin Cooney 1-2

Emmitt Mcmahon 0-4

Eoin clary 0-4

dermot coughlan 0-1

podge collins 0-1

windy shepard henderson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzlLMKxEq5k&feature=youtu.be

dont shoot the messenger in terms of sound or quality , i was only sent these on

Treble double

What can you say, I had this one written off as a trimming, but when you think their on the floor a Collins Clare team will come with a big performance.

Some brilliant performances again, thought Cillian Brennan had a great game on Con O Callaghan and Bohannan and Russell gave bags of it to Fenton and Lahiff in the middle of the field, Lahiff was taken off with alot of football still to be played. Stephen Ryan was excellent in goals and dropping him for the first two games was a crazy and costly decision. The backs as a unit were solid and Cleary, Cooney, Coughlan and McMahon shot thd lights out for 45 minutes.

Bench impact is killing this team, but hey the best players in the county are in the panel it's just that the pool is shallow and why wouldn't it be in a "hurling county".

Dublin were able to bring on Jack McCaffery, Eoin Murchin and Niall Scully etc. Which squeezed them over the line.

The conditioning of the Clare players is phenomenal and the game plan was excellent for 45 minutes but sadly it is 0 points again for all that effort and relegation is a real danger.

I have to say they deserved at least a draw for what they put into that match.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120289269#Comment_120289269

yeah excellent performance , we backed ourselves tonight , had we done that last week we would have won comfortably , the difference between ourselves and cork next week will be our full back line , them 3 boys were excellent tonight , i actually think that brian hurley and stephen sherlock will have a hard day chasing their men

dublin were at their brutal best for the last 15 minutes tonight ,they killed us with excellent defensive turnovers, our conditioning is excellent , its almost scary to think there is another level , dublin found it tonight though ! crazy

future very bright for clare football , two young lads from eire og at cornor back , Emmitt McMahon looks like gary Brennan's reincarnation , gavin cooney demot coughlin , with brian mcmahon and young meany from lissycasy to come we are in very good hands footballing wise

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120289309#Comment_120289309

I don't agree that Clare need to find another level conditioning wise. The difference in the last 15 minutes was the difference in squad depth. Dublin made 5 substitutions two at halftime and 3 between mid second half and the 60th minute. Clare made a substitution at halftime another on the 67th minute and threw in a half fit Keelan Sexton on the 70th minute, that's the difference strength in depth, that's nobody's fault, we have a tiny pool to pick from in football pockets of what's considered a hurling county. Who ever is in charge of S and C is doing an excellent job.

An argument could be made that we were missing our first choice midfield and best forward through injury, but in an attritional sport like this injuries are part of the game and squad depth is key, that is why it's nigh on impossible for Clare to be asked to compete with the Kerrys, Dublins, Galways etc who have vast player numbers.

Don't jinx us by mentioning Hurley and Sherlock, Cork always produce lethal inside forwards, an area Clare are crying out for strength in.

windy shepard henderson

Clare 6-25 1-18 Wexford

A facile 20 point win for the hurlers in wexford park , the home side made several experimental changes to the starting 15 , while clare went all in with nearly the full starting championship , first ten minutes the homeside were competitive but after that huge amount of space opened up in front of the clare half forward line and wexford were duly punished

first half goals from aidan mccarthy , david reidy , tony kelly and peter duggen , along with several aidan mccarthy points had clare 20 points up at the break , second half started like the first with wexford being competitive once more , but it didnt last , late goals from mark rodgers and david reidy put to bed any gloss on the scoreboard

excellent performances from david fitzgearld , aidan mccarthy david reidy , ryan taylor and adam hogan , while it was good to see the likes of kelly and conlon back it shows we probably need the panel to be 100% fit come championship to be in the mix again

AidanMcCarthy 1-10;

David Reidy 2-1;

Tony Kelly 1-2

Peter Duggan 1-1

Mark. Rodgers 1-0;

David Fitzgerald 0-3

Ian. Galvin 0-2

Cathal. Malone 0-1

Diarmuid. Ryan, 0-1

,Adam. Hogan, 0-1

David. Conroy 0-1

Eamon. Foudy0-1

Ryan Taylor 0-1

evolvingtipperary101

Some posters criticizing Duggan the last few weeks. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT, JOE BROLLY? 🤣😂

Aidan McCarthy is looking like one of the top hurlers in the country.

supernova5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291331#Comment_120291331

Windy, do you have the panel of 26 for todays game?

windy shepard henderson

https://twitter.com/GaaClare/status/1629230085873053696/photo/1

https://twitter.com/GaaClare/status/1629230085873053696/photo/2

i didnt see any changes on the subs bench, subs used were conroy, rodgers , oran cahil,aaron fitzgerld and morey

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291491#Comment_120291491

i was nearly dropping him off the panel a few weeks ago 🤐

if mccarthy stays fit he will be a huge addition from last year ,

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291631#Comment_120291631

Serious hurlers who can win their own ball. Big and physical too - can't go wrong with that mix.

windy shepard henderson

stats from the game today , the big one that illustrates just how much space we were given today is written across the 6-18 scored from play

https://mobile.twitter.com/OfficialWexGAA/status/1629863621281939458/photo/1

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291723#Comment_120291723

if anything happens injury wise we are in huge trouble , two or three lads out and we are a different team , were were without McCarthy and and conlon last year for the all ireland semi and look what happened

supernova5

who is this Oran Cahill guy? Don't know anything about him

wonder what the story is with Meehan

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291749#Comment_120291749

Most teams - apart from Limerick - in the same boat.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291770#Comment_120291770

from eire og , only a young lad but promising , meehan is injured i hear but not sure

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120291809#Comment_120291809

i still think the walls are closing in on limerick , tipp and galway are leading the way , and why i say them other then kilkenny is ye have huge work done under age that always stands to a team , in fairness bonner last year was a poor joke of a selection as manager , cahill jumping ship was a huge addition , its going to be a really tough ask getting out of munster this year limerick will make the final again but i dont think they will win every game ,

its massive for us to win the first game as we have limerick the following week , ye have a break after it , have a word with liam , Nollie or even johney "the hotpoint" hayes to go easy in the first round , although i think the players are banned from talking to Johnny with a couple of years now 🤣

evolvingtipperary101

Tipp and Galway are leading the way?! Come on!

You're in the fourth year of a project and ran Limerick to the minimum in a championship final last year.

We're not even half way through the league in year 1.

I don't think anyone comes close to Limerick's 1-9 at the moment. If you're going to break Limerick, a team has to win that battle. I don't see a team around to do that yet.

Clare have a real chance. Particularly with the growth in form of Fitzgerald, Malone, Duggan and McCarthy. Big, direct hurlers. But they'll need to add nuanced interplay to get over Limerick.

Ye have Limerick six days after Tipp in round one. Six days. So, ye'll have to play the second team against Tipp, the team who didn't win a game last year. And ye'd be right to. Easy one to get ye started.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120292619#Comment_120292619

other then mccarthy we have no real improvement on last year , granted meehan and rodgers are young but they were there last year ,

if you go back to 2013 and 2014 you will see the impact the underage teams had on their senior teams , ye got to the final , with less done then this group , we won the all ireland on the back of 2009/2012/2013 u21 teams

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120292627#Comment_120292627

I wouldn't be too hard on the form of players at this stage. Lohan will have them right for championship. He can't care about the league at this stage. It's year four. Lohan and this group has to win something at championship level now.

I think Tipp will have more than a few rookies in the spine of the team this year. It will take a while to get the necessary championship experience.

(And there's no one with the speed of Hotpoint to get a hurlery on the pitch...)

Billy Ocean

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120292633#Comment_120292633

On Tipp 1 doubt I have over Cahill and Bevans is the mess they made of things between the Limerick and Cork games with Waterford last year, their 2 successful years with Waterford were the Covid years.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120292633#Comment_120292633

haha legend of a man ,

at underage pre covid tipp underage were the only county pushing limerick , and during covid ye pushed corks best underage setup in years

i still think that cahill brings huge drive to tipp , year is pressure year for lohan , lets say we lose , and lose to limerick , we have davey fits in thurles two weeks later , lose that and its cutting silage for the summer

PeggyShippen

I think Cahill and Mikey Bevans have alot to prove. They've got a reputation built almost solely on two underage teams that won All Irelands as underdogs. I saw both finals. Cork were dire in one and let Tipperary walk through them. Tipp were very good in the 2nd one. That's not taking away from Tipperary . At Waterford Cahill got them to Munster and All Ireland finals. That's an achievement, no doubt . They never threatened Limerick in any of those matches. They never mixed up their tactics . Its all Harum Scarum ...flying around overlaps. Effective at times but stopped ✋️ by limerick and others..

Until Cahill wins something or at least shows he has a plan B then the jury will remain out.

windy shepard henderson

sorry peggy with all the football talk but at the moment the hurling league is about as exciting as a thursday morning forumala 1 practice session at the moment 😂

i imagine most people that will be doing their ten euro accas in the bookies in the morning will be including a division 2 combo of meath, louth and cork , if that bet was to come off we would be all be but relegated to division 3

we need a win against a good cork side , but how they set up is going to be the wining and losing of the game , to start with we have one of the best full back lines in the division so individual battles will be no problem between sherlock , hurley, og jones , and brennan, manus , and lanagin the back 3 for us were exceptional in croker last week

but cork have a predictable habit of attacking through two angles , one down the left hannd side of number 7 mattie taylor, 12 brian O'Driscoll , or 13 stephen sherlock , the other attacking option of sean powter ian mcguire chris og jones / hurley is usally a central attack , both hurley and jones will cut from outside in to create havoc , if we stop these two threats we beat cork but only if the forwards strike

we played the worst full back line in the division against Kildare and offered them all the respect in the world , cork still have problems in this department too so the performance of Cooney , McMahon and Cleary in particular is key we need at least 16 points minimum to get over the line here even at that i dont think it will be enough , if we repeat the Croke park outing last week we have a chance but anything before that is not going to be good enough

keeponhurling

^ that does a disservice toThursday morning F1 practice sessions ! the hurling league is really dire

Nobody cares about winning it.

Nobody it seems can be relegated.

Most people don’t really understand the format, or even try to

It sort of just feels like a series of unrelated challenge matches

windy shepard henderson

Clare 1-8 3-10 Cork

To sumerise this game the score line could have been far far worse but for stephen ryan in goals and the clare full back line especially manus doherty and cillian brennan who were under constant pressure from start to finish , the performance of our half forward line especially jamie malone and dermot coughlin was deplorable , especially coughlin , marked by one of the best attacking wing backs in the country in mattie talyor he never even bothered to track his man back half the time and when he was on the ball he only ever went in one direction backwards with it ,

jamie malone the same , once our best line breaker and ball carrier another who has shown little interest in attacking over the course of the league , we need far far more from him in particular , out main attacking option in emmet mcmahon spent most of the game as a 3rd midfielder or sweeper to combat the other forwards mistakes and turnovers

sean powter caused havoc down the middle , taylor and ruari deane down the left and hurley and chris og jones in the full forward line were the difrence makers , cork in the second half kicked 2-7 and two wides to clares 0-4 and 7 wides , throw in a missed penalty a series of stephan ryan saves and an injured stephen sherlock and this could have been much worse

granted the scares of croke park were written all over or flat performance but the better team won easily , its looking like division 3 football next season for us , i feel sorry for colm he has been let down by another poor performance today by a number of players and for all he has done for clare football he deserves better

Clare scorers

Keelan sexton 1-01

Eoin Cleary 0-4

Emmet McMahon 0-2

Darragh Bohannan 0-1

Highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGvgs6LmfzY&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPYuh29VCoE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNC1maw0mA

windy shepard henderson

unless the unlikely happens in owenbeg next week clare need limerick to beat kildare and us to beat limerick in the last game , it looks like a lot to ask for now at this stage

https://twitter.com/GAALeagueTables/status/1632406875886047236/photo/1

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120266299#Comment_120266299

Unfortunately I have been proved right about the above but I underestimated how bad Meath are.

Cork have got there act together and are a good level above us.

I feel sorry for Collins after all he has done but he will sign off with Clare back in Div. 3. Today was like a throwback to Clare football in the pre Collinns era and we looked every inch a div. 3 team.

I can't for the life of me understand how Stephen Ryan was dropped for the first 2 games and the debacle in Meath is one of the main reasons why we are going down. The selectors have alot to answer for and allegiance to their own club men is what I put it down to, when that is at the heart of selection, you are wasting your time.

Collins is pound for pound one of the best managers in the country and is operating with a shallow pool of players, my one criticism of him is being too loyal to his selectors and not shaking them up every couple of years but then again it might not be easy to get men to do the job.

There has been some brilliant days in the last 7 years in Div 2 but today felt like the end of an era.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318061#Comment_120318061

as regards ryan ,its very easy see why he was dropped last year , but the last two games he has repaid collins before that he was a liability hopefully we dont see them days again

i agree with everything else you said , collins deserves better , you could see how disappointed he was after the game in the interviews , my only fear is we start losing players due to lack of commitment like the pre collins days , if collins dose go the next manager in needs the same level of support from the board

billy lee in limerick went looking for one or two extra things like a full time conditioning coach like we have in rob mulcahey and was told no by a county board backed financially by jp mcmanus , lee left as a result after years of hard work put in , we can never allow that to happen us again

if we stay true to the conditioning in division 3 it will stand to us as most teams at that level are way behind the top two tiers . our problem at this level in the last few weeks have been injuries , we need everyone available to us all the time , we had a very young and inexperienced bench today again , cathal o connor , darren O'Neill , are huge losses as is cillian rouine

KIB4Life

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318154#Comment_120318154

Cork destroyed us on breaking ball in the second half, which was a huge factor in them dominating and beat us so well in the second half.

I think we could have been as easily be towards the top of the table, had results gone our way but them are the breaks.

We are finishing games very poorly, which is something that maybe needs to be addressed not much impact coming off the bench. Downes and Griffin looked very good for UL but have not produced the same level of performance for Clare.

The likes of O’Connor, O’Neill and Podge are big losses especially given the effect it has on the impact coming off the bench. You would probably have Russell in wing back and Bohannon at Wing Forward if O’Connor and O’Neill were fit.

Boots234

We need Kildare to lose to both Limerick and Meath and we need to beat Limerick for us to stay up. If Kildare beat Limerick we are down as they will have 4 points and have us in the head to head regardless if we beat Limerick (this is assuming we lose up in Derry first)

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318427#Comment_120318427

Injuries are part and parcel of the game, every team will be down 3 or 4 players a game through injury, this kills us because we are picking from a small pool of players, our impact from the bench when we have a few injuries is non existent.

In saying that I still thought we were very poor today. The amount of ball taken off us in possession due to handling errors and mistakes was shocking, Manus Doherty and Pearse Lillis were big culprits. The only defender that could be happy with his work today was Cillian Brennan.

Our attack was really blunt, the two inside forwards offered no threat, and the four other lads kicked bad wides, offered no running threat and werent up to much when defending.

We are on two points because apart from a nothing to lose fling against Dublin, we have been average to poor in every other game.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318915#Comment_120318915

wouldnt be overly hard on manus , he was under pressure from the word go , the half forward line bar the tracking back from cleary was terrible the half back line was terrible in the second half second to everything , mcmahon and bohannon tried hard but under real pressure from better opposition

inside forward line was terrible , keelan kicked a nice point in the first half but the 7 or 8 in the second half killed us , 5 of them came when their were 3 points or less in the game , we have a lot ot learning to do ithink still against the better teams

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318427#Comment_120318427

cork were actually very predictable in their game plan in the second half , but were very affective in how they attacked the game again we were too slow and ponderous,

yep if we had finished our games out we would have had a craic at promotion before today , we are not good enough though for division 1

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120318830#Comment_120318830

huge ask now , it still is possible to stay up but 30% chance at this stage at best

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319003#Comment_120319003

We should have all our learning done by now, we are 7 years in Div 2. In our first year in the Division 2 we played Derry, they were relegated that year and relegated again the following year. They spent a year in Div 4 and then gathered themselves and worked their way back up, all this time we were in Div 2 playing better opposition and "learning". Yet in their first year returned to Div 2 last year they wiped the floor with us in Ennis and repeated the dose in the championship. We just don't have and will never have enough of a pool of players as a football team in a hurling county to break in to the top division or have a significant championship breakthrough. Collins in his time has brought us to the limit of our ability and as sad as I am to say it he may as well be banging his head off a block wall at this stage.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319060#Comment_120319060

you cant compare us to derry , derry went form league finalists in division 1 to 4 because of pat fitz like management at county board level , while all that was going on the likes of slaughtneil were riping it up in both codes at club level , brian ogs from derry city won a club all ireland and the glen men of watty grahams from mahera won the all ireland intermediate championship on top of an all ireland senior club appearance where we all know what happened

Ethan Dorthey , Emmett Bradley , benny herron of the top of my head played iin that division 1 final , conor glass went professional in australia , befroe returning to the glenn and playing in two different grades in all ireland finals . and crissy mcckague of slaughtneail is probably one of the best hurlers in the country before his in credible football cv is introduced , he played in division 1 before the fall , as did the excellent brendan rodgers who won the game last night

if they had their house in order they would have had an all ireland won by now , and i am sure i left a few players out

Treble double

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319261#Comment_120319261

I'm not comparing us to Derry, I'm saying we can't learn anymore, we have been learning for 7 years and have reached our ceiling because we haven't got a big enough pool of players to push any further.

I would compare us to Limerick and Tipp hurling counties playing a bit of football. Limerick are at our level now, playing Div 2 and beat us in the championship last year. Tipp took their chance and won a Munster Championship a couple of years ago when Cork had shocked Kerry. Tipp beat us that year aswell even though we were operating at a higher level in the leauge. Our record in Munster under Collins has been poor.

windy shepard henderson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120319401#Comment_120319401

teams like us dont go to division 4 to regroup , as soon as the likes of us limerick wexford tipp hit division 4 the finances dry up , and the majority goes to the hurling team

this game from 2010 proves just that , good manager in michael mcdermot who guided kilmurry to an all ireland final about a month before this game , round 7 of the league, the winner got promoted to division 3 , we had brennan , tubridy , the late michael o'shea , enda coughlin , darren and shane hickey martin mcmahon david russell , and we lost by 9 points to waterford , thats a better team on paper then what lined out last week against cork , nearly as good as the team that beat roscommon last year in croke park

we were so under conditioned in this game its scary , no development squad to create a conveyor system of under age players ,no money for these things mean you are more then up against it and because of our low position in division 4 players like noel downes ,mark mccarthy and stephen maloney to name a few from that 2010 KIB team turned down the chance to play for their county

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5abnuQeZgY

fire_man

I'm not sure if some of those players you mentioned would have made big difference to county side.

windy shepard henderson

We don't have better then Brennan or turbidy at the moment,the likes of cookie, Maloney and downes were better that time then anything we have now bar maybe keelan or cleary ,

Enda coughlin was outstanding back then too especially in the run up to the all Ireland final Gordon Kelly also played that day

That video shows a massive drop in standard especially straight and condition from where we are at now,

fire_man

Ya it was hard to watch that video.Miles off.

KIB4Life

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120334966#Comment_120334966

Ah yeah it would probably hard blame some of the Kilmurry players at the time from not playing with the county, when you think back they were playing a very high level of club football, running in Croke Park in front of close to 40,000 to then going to probably playing for Clare at the time you would only get a couple of hundred playing for Clare. At that time around the Mid-Late 2000', early 2010's you get probably more attendance at most club games in the county then county games.

In fairness if some of the players that you mentioned were around when Collins came in with the structure that he has brought and professionalism to the county earlier around 2010, he would have definitely brought them at closer to getting promoted to Division 1, as there were some brilliant footballers. Like people rightly give Collins massive praise for what he done for Clare football, but in his first few years when he was in Division 4, 3 he had some top level players to work with.

The likes of Joe Hayes, Kevin Hartnett, Gordon Kelly, Martin McMahon, Enda Coughlan, Dean Ryan, Shane Hickey, Gary Brennan, Cathal O'Connor, Ciarán Russell, Podge and Seán Collins and David Tubridy were all outstanding players and I remember I think it might have been Collins first year in charge gave Kerry an awful scare in Cusack Park. Add in the likes of Shane McGrath and Pat Burke from Dublin playing with us, then the likes of talented young players at the time who were coming through, who have given great service since in the likes of Eoin Cleary, Jamie Malone, Keelan Sexton, Pearse Lillis, Cian O'Dea and Cillian Brennan, so it's not like Collins has been working with donkeys, during his spell with Clare.

Yeah I actually watched back highlights of KIB's semi final win over Portlaoise in the Gaelic Grounds in 2010, over the Christmas, biased aside I actually forgot how come that team was you had Michael O'Dwyer and Noel Downes were briliant in the inside forward line. Michael Hogan, the most underrated footballer in the county over the last 20 years or so along with Pato come kick monster frees and Steven Moloney who was the playmaker in that team, actually think he got 1-02 in the All Ireland Final. Then you had Peter O'Dwyer who in my opinion was as good a Midfielder as Gary Brennan, or anyone who has ever played for the county, imagine him in his prime playing under Collins, with Brennan or O'Connor beside as some sort of midfield three, they would have dominated most teams.

Cookie and Odhran O'Dwyer were subs that day for Kilmurry which is crazy to think of. But in fairness it is not just KIB players say if some players were around when Clare football was better managed they could have had more success or played at a higher level, Padraig Gallagher and Conor Whelan were outstanding players, Liscannor had some great players in Brian Considine, Niall Considine, Ronan Slattery and Alan Clohessy, then Kilkee had brilliant players at that time when KiB were competing well in Munster. They had the Russell's, Michael O'Shea, Darragh Kelly among others. The club game around late 2000's early 2010's was much stronger then it is now, you also had a very strong Cratloe team coming through around that time. So really in short when Clare were in Division 4, then had a lot of Division 1, 2 Level footballers it is just the structures were not in place and it was not very glamorous for these players to play in Division 4 or to give the committment to the county.