Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

A lot of this is bang on but ,to start you are unfair on limerick , this win is about 5 years in the making and billy lee has done the same for limerick football as collins has for us .

i know your a traditionalist but in the modern era conditioning is huge, it has played a huge part in getting us to where we are , and in truth it is very rare a more conditioned team takes to the field against us in ennis , tonight the fitter , more conditioned and probably the smarter side won unlike the disaster in thurlas in 2020 against tipp , people like seamus o'donnell , billy lee and paul kinerrk have worked tirelessly for tonight for years and they deserve this hopefully they can kick on and give munster a real rattle

as for players , yes we need to chop and change more we have become too predictable in our style of play we have plenty of good youn players coming through but i agree we need to throw them in now , brendy rouine , young mcnamara from cooraclare , daniel walsh are all better then some of the lads in front of them in the starting 15

the only worry in the short term future is the lack of scoring forwards coming through is minimal we have loads of grafters in the middle 3rd and some exceptional defensive players but nothing up front , young rouine is good but hes still very young

mighty win today , we have had some rough days espically in thurles against cork today makes up for them really good performance

the job lohan has done with paul flanagan and rory hayes is unreal the halfback line looks solid now also , we lack forwards still though when duggan went off nothing stuck inside and we had no one to bring on , this helped cork back into the game and while the goal at the end might have flattered the result it also acts as a warning sign for whats ahead

limerick were 10 points the better team against cork and made sure of it , we were the same at times today and only won by 2 we need meehan back first and foremost , but we probably need to be better with the use of subs , maybe move kelly inside and bring on someone like jason mccarthy rather then brining on an un fit aaron shanagher or an awkward donal mcmahon

all thats for another day ,today the performances of ryan taylor ,john conlon peter duggan even david mcinerney who i had doubts about were fantastic, malone and flanagan have improved ten fold under lohan , the workrate of mounsey and o'donnell has taken a huge load off tony kellys shoulders too he dosnt have to do half the work he had to do last year or the year before

but in truth thats the best hurling i have seen from a clare back 6 since lohan was playing himself

the greatest attribute john kiely has brought to limerick is change in physicology , lohan has the same done for us , we on another year would have lost both ties with aidan mccarthy reidy and whoever else , in fairness i taught it was there last year too and that we were unlucky against cork that day but the way we attacked in the first 25 minutes today and defended in the last 25 was most impressive

lets not be fooled here cork played some great hurling it that second half today and really brought intensity and we were able to match it , in years past we would have wilted

he played well but the question mark still hangs over him at times in games , we had a spell int he second half where we were getting over run in the middle 3rd he was no where to be seen and at times his shooting is awfull but yeah first half top notch and found his second wind late on

to be fair to crotty he is a tallent but hes just gone 18 , he struggles against top defenders so from a confidence point of view i dont want to see him rushed

yeah i agree about the kickouts , i also worry about our forwards , arron griffan was excellent we never mentioned him the other night but i still think the likes of Finucane from his own club is better , i see him way doen the pecking order in terms of clare forwards but he cant be faulted for saturday night

cooneys tracking back is terrible , luke connally was dropped from the cork team for the same reason , i think starting eoin collins was an awful call and he got well cleaned , cillian rouine didnt have the best night either you could fault him for two of limericks goals

i dont like slating clare footballers its the minority game in the county and i am from the heart of that area , i want it promoted as much as possible but we need perspective on things too, we to the best of my knowledge have beaten a division 1 team under collins but , what he has done to set up development squads and bring young players through is remarkable

we need to be happy with what we have , slowly we will bring through some talented players through again and become as strong as we were in 2016 but its going to take time , brian mc from cooraclare and fionn kellaher from doora/barefield are the next big things in clare football most counties would love to have that level of talent coming through i know its tough going at times but its a lot better then what it could be