Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

Clareman

In my opinion we shoudn't be getting involved at all, why say anything? It's not our decision whether the game goes ahead or not, the GAA have said it is to go ahead so we should prepare as if we'll be playing on Sunday, if we get a walkover so be it.

Treble double

Clareman wrote: »

In my opinion we shoudn't be getting involved at all, why say anything? It's not our decision whether the game goes ahead or not, the GAA have said it is to go ahead so we should prepare as if we'll be playing on Sunday, if we get a walkover so be it.

Exactly, if the shoe was on the other foot that's how Fermanagh would react.
Let them whinge away in the media and say nothing, not our decision.
I know it's a different county but Armagh were directed to play us at a neutral venue for breaching training camp protocols a few seasons ago. The "neutral" venue we got was Newery which is further away than the Athletic grounds. The game was played on a frozen pitch and Dermot Coughlan suffered a horrific injury in the first play an injury that is probably still haunting him. McGeeney wouldn't acknowledge after that the pitch was a factor in the injury, he just whinged about not being allowed play at home with the usual big dour head on him. Clare should bring Armagh back to Cross for the game Sunday week, they don't have to worry about catering for supporters😆

KIB4Life

Fermanagh have only 3 subs named for Sunday’s game. Clare should win handy enough, based on both teams that were named even though I would expect Clare to make at least 2 or 3 chances to the team by the time the game throws in on Sunday.

Clareman

I'd be amazed if that game goes ahead to be honest, we wouldn't expect a Clare team to travel to Fermanagh in the current climate so it's not fair to expect them to travel down, for example where are they to get a pre-match meal? just bring sandwiches?

KIB4Life

Clareman wrote: »

I'd be amazed if that game goes ahead to be honest, we wouldn't expect a Clare team to travel to Fermanagh in the current climate so it's not fair to expect them to travel down, for example where are they to get a pre-match meal? just bring sandwiches?

Ya Absolutely I read Ricey staying that they would have to bring food on the bus and eat on the way down and that they have leave early on Sunday morning it’s not ideal or a level playing field. Even if they had all their players available for them it would still be a disadvantage having to travel down on the day of the game. It could have surely been looked at to play this game at a neutral venue, given the circumstances.

Clareman

But they wouldn't be allowed travel together in a bus. Having the game at a neutral venue would be bad for Clare, they have a massive advantage being at home, can't see why they'd expect to give that up.

Clareman

Clareman wrote: »

But they wouldn't be allowed travel together in a bus. Having the game at a neutral venue would be bad for Clare, they have a massive advantage being at home, can't see why they'd expect to give that up.

Actually level 3 would be 50% capacity so 1 bus would do them, not sure about Northern Irish buses though, level 4 is 25% capacity so that would be 2 buses. I read somewhere that the Kerry players are going to drive themselves to their match at the weekend.

Clareman

https://twitter.com/GaaClare/status/1317172168959164416?s=20

That's not a bad team, 1 of the strongest benches I think I've ever seen for a Clare team.

BloodyBill

KIB4Life wrote: »

Ya Absolutely I read Ricey staying that they would have to bring food on the bus and eat on the way down and that they have leave early on Sunday morning it’s not ideal or a level playing field. Even if they had all their players available for them it would still be a disadvantage having to travel down on the day of the game. It could have surely been looked at to play this game at a neutral venue, given the circumstances.

Get real. The Fermanagh manager is playing the 'wounded soldier' and isn't genuine. Having to 'carry food' on the Bus just confirms the victim hood culture surrounding the whole situation. With a full team they wouldn't get within 5 of us. The northerners know how to publicise any precieved injustice . This isn't one of them.
Armagh should be taken way back West,as far back as we can take them

KIB4Life

BloodyBill wrote: »

Get real. The Fermanagh manager is playing the 'wounded soldier' and isn't genuine. Having to 'carry food' on the Bus just confirms the victim hood culture surrounding the whole situation. With a full team they wouldn't get within 5 of us. The northerners know how to publicise any precieved injustice . This isn't one of them.
Armagh should be taken way back West,as far back as we can take them

I agree with you about bringing the Armagh lads back west, but the Clare footballers seem to like playing in Cusack Park, so the game definitely won’t be coming back west. Definitely wouldn’t have any sympathy for Armagh after their winging after the league game last year.

I think Colm Collins was willing to give up home advantage to play the game in a neutral venue mid week is want I heard. I suppose from that point of view Clare can’t be painted in a bad light and Collins has had his own experience of this recently with Clubs backing Cratloe when they had their Covid cases, so he can’t be blamed or Clare can’t be blamed for not trying to accommodate Fermanagh.

Clareman

KIB4Life wrote: »

I agree with you about bringing the Armagh lads back west, but the Clare footballers seem to like playing in Cusack Park, so the game definitely won’t be coming back west. Definitely wouldn’t have any sympathy for Armagh after their winging after the league game last year.

I think Colm Collins was willing to give up home advantage to play the game in a neutral venue mid week is want I heard. I suppose from that point of view Clare can’t be painted in a bad light and Collins has had his own experience of this recently with Clubs backing Cratloe when they had their Covid cases, so he can’t be blamed or Clare can’t be blamed for not trying to accommodate Fermanagh.

He should just keep his mouth shut on venues in my opinion, this is between the GAA and the travelling team nothing to do with us, I'm sure it's a whole lot easier to have the home team control the environment and only have 1 team travel rather than getting another county board to get their ground ready and have both teams travel. Also, as both games are on GAA Go I'd imagine that the Park is the only ground with suitable facilities for that.

Clareman

BloodyBill wrote: »

Get real. The Fermanagh manager is playing the 'wounded soldier' and isn't genuine. Having to 'carry food' on the Bus just confirms the victim hood culture surrounding the whole situation. With a full team they wouldn't get within 5 of us. The northerners know how to publicise any precieved injustice . This isn't one of them.
Armagh should be taken way back West,as far back as we can take them

There aren't many easy games against Northern teams and I'd be worried about complacency on our part, if Fermanagh were so up against it they could concede the fixture like Leitrim against down. I would agree that 2 full strength teams against in Cusack Park we'd be 5 points favourites

letowski

Clare are in big trouble in the minor game. Cork by far the stronger team. 1-9 to 1-3 after 18mins. This could be a rout.

letowski

Cork 1-10 Clare 1-8 at HT. Clare battling back into the game. They will be playing against a gale in the second half though. But some positives.

BloodyBill

letowski wrote: »

Cork 1-10 Clare 1-8 at HT. Clare battling back into the game. They will be playing against a gale in the second half though. But some positives.

Thought we had a good minor team. Very Flannans heavy I thought but then they won the Harty. Only 1 player from Ard Scoil.. Sounds like they got a right trimming.

letowski

Cork 1-24 Clare 2-13. As bad a beating you would get at this level. Completely blown out it for most of the game. The Cork team looked like men compared to our lads. Consistently just pushing our lads of the ball and breezing by our tackles.

Very disappointing considering we had a decent campaign last year, as did St. Flannan's and had alot of those lads on the team. Ultimately we didn't have the players, particularly in the forward line. Again I'd have huge reservations about the management team, playing a systematic, short hand passing style of hurling with 2 man full forward line. We carried no threat up front and were reliant on frees and out field scores. Our work rate and conditioning was no where near Corks either and we were always turning over the ball.

Cork are very good team with some excellent players. Particularly in the forward line. they should go far.

There has to be questions why the County Board are choosing to pick underage management teams that want to play this systematic style of hurling. You could see in the first 10 minutes they were not comfortable with these tactics, as most teenagers at 17 or 16 aren't. We need to be focusing our skills and making sure players are developing physically so they can transition to senior hurling. No overburden them with tactics.

letowski

BloodyBill wrote: »

Thought we had a good minor team. Very Flannans heavy I thought but then they won the Harty. Only 1 player from Ard Scoil.. Sounds like they got a right trimming.

Yeah I had expectations for them too. It was very disappointing to see them so far off it. The likes of Oisin O'Donnell and Killian O'Connor hardly featured.

BloodyBill

letowski wrote: »

Yeah I had expectations for them too. It was very disappointing to see them so far off it. The likes of Oisin O'Donnell and Killian O'Connor hardly featured.

Very disappointing to hear that they played below themselves. The tactics are of course terrible. Against a big team you need to keep it open. Whats the point of an extra man in defence if he can't make a tackle. Genetics can't make us bigger but some serious conditioning could make us stronger..they should be lifting at 12 years old. All the latest studies show nothing but positive results on kids doing weights. The old claptrap about it stunting skeletal development is wrong.
Did any young guy for us stand out?

letowski

BloodyBill wrote: »

Very disappointing to hear that they played below themselves. The tactics are of course terrible. Against a big team you need to keep it open. Whats the point of an extra man in defence if he can't make a tackle. Genetics can't make us bigger but some serious conditioning could make us stronger..they should be lifting at 12 years old. All the latest studies show nothing but positive results on kids doing weights. The old claptrap about it stunting skeletal development is wrong.
Did any young guy for us stand out?

Not many, if any. Ian McNamara from Killanena at center back played well, looked very athletic carrying the ball forward and has good size. Ja Collins the wing back, that was on the team last year, played decent too. He took the long range frees and was pretty good at them and has a good strike of a ball. Nobody in the forwards had a good game. Adam Hogan is a great prospect at full back and by and large held his own, but the goal was all on him as he lost the ball carrying the ball out from a puck out.

That encompasses my problem with the management team. The last two years Coffey and Bruiser have completely over done on the tactics at the expense of the team’s skills and condition. Getting the full back line to break tackles and run out with the ball is a recipe for disaster, which it was. Underage team’s main focus should be on developing the players touch, striking, skills etc, while having a sensible S&C programme in place so they can make the step up to senior. Our touch and striking was a mile of Corks today, they had lads hitting points from the sideline and we were missing from in front of goal. They weren’t prepared well at all and were gassed by 45 minutes. That’s just not good enough at this level.

Clareman

I'll admit I didn't know who the management team were for Clare this year so I had to look it up, there's 14 people listed, 1 is the physio and 1 is the doctor fair enough, but 12 people involved in a minor team, no wonder we're going no where.

Clareman

Okay, forgive me here I had a glass of wine with dinner and got a bit carried away with Roscommon beating Armagh with Armagh having a man sent off. If we beat Fermanagh tomorrow we'll be on 6 points with our destiny in our own hands in the last game, but we'll also have to have an awful lot of results to go against us, I know about the same amount as we needed to stay up but still it's a huge game for us. I heard talk that there's a few Fermanagh people around town today by the way

caddy16

Clareman wrote: »

I'll admit I didn't know who the management team were for Clare this year so I had to look it up, there's 14 people listed, 1 is the physio and 1 is the doctor fair enough, but 12 people involved in a minor team, no wonder we're going no where.

There are a few of them who have no business being involved in an intercounty setup.

Clareman

caddy16 wrote: »

There are a few of them who have no business being involved in an intercounty setup.

In fairness that could be said about every setup at an intercounty level in Clare hurling at the moment. For me it should be simple, manager who is the ultimate decision maker and 3 selectors (1 for fitness, 1 for backs and 1 for forwards), throw in some support people that are needed (physio/doctor) and that's it, 12 people over a minor team, how can anyone make a decision with that, in a professional setting and I'm hosting a meeting of 12 people it's not going to happen because you can't have 11 people talking to 1 person.

Clareman

Decent interview (except for all the mistakes) with Colm Collins up on Munster GAA now

https://munster.gaa.ie/2020/10/clares-colm-collins-delighted-to-have-gary-brennan-back/

caddy16

Clareman wrote: »

In fairness that could be said about every setup at an intercounty level in Clare hurling at the moment. For me it should be simple, manager who is the ultimate decision maker and 3 selectors (1 for fitness, 1 for backs and 1 for forwards), throw in some support people that are needed (physio/doctor) and that's it, 12 people over a minor team, how can anyone make a decision with that, in a professional setting and I'm hosting a meeting of 12 people it's not going to happen because you can't have 11 people talking to 1 person.

Not really, this minor set up have several hangers on that contribute nothing. Don't think the u20 or seniors are as bad.

Clareman

caddy16 wrote: »

Not really, this minor set up have several hangers on that contribute nothing. Don't think the u20 or seniors are as bad.

Just did a quick google search and found this https://clarechampion.ie/clare-team-named-for-munster-u20-hurling-showdown-with-cork/ looking at the team sheets that were online it jumps out at me that there's 2 Rogers from Scariff in management teams, nice to see that family ties aren't limited to Fitz's for a change.

letowski

It's hard not to be concerned about the long term future of Clare hurling.

There has been a massive talent deficit these last few years coming through to senior (ages 22-25). I don't think we have any starters this year in that age bracket (possibly Fitzgearld)? Then just Diarmuid Ryan and Aidan McCarthy before that.

There looks to be a couple of good underage players between 17 to 19 years but that won't matter if we can't produce good quality each year underage. Even when we had a great minor team in 2010 and 2011, but that group of players (except 2013) has struggled to go on deep runs in the championship each year. My point is one good underage team doesn't automatically translate to long term senior success. There needs to be new young players, even if just 1 or 2, every year breaking onto the senior panel to stake a claim for place. Only then can Clare have good prolonged senior campaigns each year. The squad we have right now, is by and large the same team we have had the last few years, with Lohan switching up some players positions.

But to do that, the underage set up and development squads have to start producing much higher quality teams. It's very frustrating when you go to watch different Clare underage teams each year, struggling in the same areas, getting beaten the same way, and nothing being done about it.

Clareman

It's gotten to the stage where its harder to get off the senior team than it is to get onto it

Clareman

Clare up by 3 points going into the water break in the second half, you'd hope their bench will let them kick on from here but Fermanagh aren't going anywhere

Clareman

Fermanagh missed a sitter, some let off for Clare