Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

OK, by blooding players I mean get players used to playing at a higher level with an eye to bring them through to the first team or maybe be an effective sub, most successful teams do this. Outside of Cian O'Dea, who is only playing for EO because he works for them, I don't think they brought anyone through. Not having subs to bring on cost them the game today in my opinion, they were 3 points up with the game nearly over and were out on their feet at the end, if the game went to extra time I think Ballyea would have won anyway.

To be honest I kind of saw yesterday's performance coming so I wasn't that surprised. Against Kilmaley they were badly exposed in the first half, when they got back into it in the second half they were never able to get fully back into it, 3 point defeat was a very flattering score line. Then against Scariff they got the job done, Scariff came back well but ultimately couldn't cope with SoD who was the difference in the end. Against CQ they were against a team who had already qualified and who's best player had a broken toe. If Kilmaley didn't have a complete melt down in their game against CQ Eire Og could have been out at the group stages and wouldn't have had anyone to blame but themselves.

In the quarters they got an IK team clearly in turmoil, if the rumours are anything to go on IK were in a heap, still knock out hurling is about winning which is what EO did. In the semi final it took the Bridge being down to 14 men for EO to win, I have no doubt that if the Bridge kept to 15 or if it wasn't their center back that got the line that it would have been a different result, but again knock out hurling is about wining.

Move onto the final, Ballyea had their homework done, first of all for the goals, they exposed the EO full back line and got their rewards. Then they nullified the main EO forwards, SoD was held scoreless, Reidy got 1 score (a goal in fairness but ultimately because the goalie dropped the ball in the sun) and Cooney got 1 point which was well wide.

Eire Og is a great club for self promotion, they'll be great at sending letters or putting up signs or doing money raising for white elephants but I'd ask anyone to drive around town and into some of the larger estates around like Cahercalla, Hermitage, Clancy Park, Cloughleigh and see why kind of promotion of the games is going on there or what flags/bunting was put up, no problem seeing the colours on O'Connell St. or on roundabouts. They are playing the under 21B this year, they will be playing intermediate league hurling next year, they were beaten by 19 points in the minor semi final but if you ask most Eire Og supporters they will say it was a good year.

Nailing my colours to the mast, I think the signing of Cian O'Dea has really badly tarnished the club, nothing wrong on paper with what done, as an isolated player he is entitled to play for whoever he wants, however if he wasn't employed by the club would he have transferred? Was the transfer part of the reason for him getting the job? Ignoring that, ultimately he is a brilliant athlete but a limited hurler, Kilmaley exposed him badly but how was it that he even started that first day? Are you telling me that there is no player better than him in the entire club or is it ok for someone to walk in the gate and start a championship game? If he played a few league games in itself would have been something but a few challenges against the likes of Blackrock isn't enough in my opinion.

Finally, I think the hurlers are being propped up by the footballers, the style of play is very much a football like setup with group tackling by physically strong big players, this will get them so far but when they are up against a team of hurlers (like Kilmaley, Bridge and Ballyea) they will struggle and will be exposed, they almost got over that this year and if they had a few subs to bring on they probably would be county champions now but management made the decision that the 15 on the field were good enough and that's all that matters, live by the sword, die by the sword.

There's a lot of politics involved in Ennis GAA, if you are anyway good Eire Og will take you, the old urban league didn't do a whole lot to develop The Banner, Shane Meehan is probably the first standout player to stay with The Banner. There are a lot of people involved with Eire Og who would be a lot closer to The Banner than Eire Og, off the top of my head Ronan & Jimmy Cooney both live up in Shannaway Road as does Gavin Cooney.

There is definitely a snobbery thing associated with Eire Og, whether right or wrong there are a lot more people who think like you that a whole part of town was ignored because it was the "wrong part of town". Most rural clubs would have had a collection route for young lads to get to training, there was none of that in town. There was also the Flannan's snobbery as well, a lot of good hurlers transferred from the Tech/Brothers to Flannan's for Harty. It used to be said that the worst player to be in Ennis was the second best in any position because you were never going to get game time or allowed play with another team, it was also said that if you were behind the coach's son for a position you might as well give up. Things are improving but Ennis has been very badly ran for GAA for a long time now, having 1 club dominate has been a detriment to the success of GAA in the town

Peter Duggan blowing kisses at the Eire Og manager after the scoring a free after getting dogs abuse from the sideline.

To tackle the Éire Óg question first, it's probably the most cliquey of all clubs you'll ever come across, you're either in the clique or your not, if you are in, it's a fantastic club, very welcoming, do anything for you, best of everything that is best of the GAA. If you're not in, you're just not in, you'll be excluded, looked down on, ignored, everything bad about the GAA really. Whether you're in or not could be down to where you live, where you went to school, what you work at.

They also are extremely protective of their status of the top club in town, they'd love to be the only club, they have actively blocked attempts to improve the GAA in Ennis in the past.

Getting back to sport in Ennis, unfortunately the same thing undermines every club, you get a few people in who rot the club from the inside, it happens to nearly every successful club in the town, the fact that Ennis can have 2 successful golf clubs and only 1 senior GAA club tells you all you need to know. Any time anyone tries to get anything setup to fix things those in power block it almost immediately or just try to push their own agenda. An example of this would be Eire Og, they actively the urban leagues when they were setup, then they setup an academy, now they have a Games Development Officer who goes to EVERY primary school and recruits from there, the original plan was for the 4 schools to have their own GDO and "club". Now they are looking to raise €800k to rebuild their gym, combining that with the money for the stand that'll be over a million pumped into the club in the last few years that could have been far better used to develop GAA in the whole town.

Great football team, McInerney and Cooney are 2 of the best forwards in the country and would make their case for a place on any team, club football in Clare is at a fairly low ebb, there aren't many good clubs there but when a club get on a run they are hard to beat, Eire Og have the run, they went into the last group game last season with the threat of relegation hanging over them but are now odds on to do back to back titles.

The 2 senior panels have a lot of cross over, I think there are 18 players across both panels with 7 or 8 starters