Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

the idea we have regressed is questionable , we are currently without about 5 starters , stephan ryan, ronan lanigan, michael garry ,dermot coughlin and daragh bohannon , its bound to have an effect on performances , and given the quality of some of the players that have retired over the last 3 or 4 years is still having an impact too

i think we are doing ok for what we have but the new rules dont suit us and we will need more time then others to come to terms with them ,

one example late in the game yesterday was keelan receiving a pass between the D and the sideline from alan sweeney , he got boxed in and looked for an off load and there was no one behind him , under the old rules he would have had cillian rouine or manus on his shoulder to continue the play he got turned over as a result

busy week in clare gaa , sadly on thursday the great willie walsh passed away , the man synonymous with clare hurling for several decades died suddenly at home , the roscrea native lived most of his life in ennis and was heavily involved within clare gaa beit the intercounty team st flannans or even eire og who he was a selector with the last time they won the hurling championship

a really good man and a fantastic activist ,may he rest in peace .

on friday the teams were announced for the the weekends league games , the footballers game has since fallen foul to the weather and has been postponed, while brian lohan has announced a much stronger side to face wexford tomorrow in the park, with the return of david fitz, mark rodgers tony kelly and john conlon , he has stuck by and rightly so behind young ian mcnamara who had a bad spell against antony burns 2 weeks ago , young mcnamara was excellent in the previous game against kilkenny and deserves his chance again

today in football ,ennistymon cbs qualified for the All Ireland C schools final after a fine win over keady from armagh in the semi final in roscommon , the north clare school won on a scoreline of 1-15 to 2-8 , Conor Burke scored 1-10 of that tally , conor is probably one of the most exciting prospects i have seen in clare football and is still only 17, his fellow parish man all ireland minor hurler conor heagerty is captain of the cbs hopefully he can add a football medel to the hurling in a few weeks time

interviews with the media after the game , nicholas rynne again i think is responsible for these

To be fair I wouldn't be , but it would seem that everything is geared towards the Munster championship, it's only 8 weeks away, i don't think we will go into championship without a win though

People need to realise that we would still be that bit behind everyone else training wise between Holliday's and medal presentations In The last 4 or 5 weeks or whatever it is , is going to have an effect

meehan was on the matchday panel yesterday but coming back from injury , realistically as you say maybe cian galvin has done enough for a starting place he has been excellent in all 3 league games , the surprise package has been ross hayes , i wasnt expecting him to make the impact he has , Daragh lohan is likely to start in the full back line for the munster championship if cleary is out ,

in fairness to lohan its all about finding cover , we have used the best part of 30 players and still have about 5 players out injured ,the championship team wont look too much different from last year but you probably would be a bit more comfortable about players being drafted in when key players are out

this is basically the like for like replacement on what has played throughout the league so far ,if you think about the munster final in 2023 where cian nolan was drafted in on aaron gillane at the last minute with little game time , or paudi fitzpatrick in the 2022 all ireland semi final you can see we probably have more cover now

1. QULLIGAN____________ ,- Foudy/Broadrick
2. Leen——————————- , /Rory Hayes/Ian McNamara/John Coneally
3. Cleary ————————— , - Daragh Lohan
4. Hogan—————————- , /Rory Hayes/Ian McNamara/John Coneally
5. Ryan ——————————, - Cian Galvin
6. Conlon ——————————,Cian Galvin/Ross Hayes
7. David MC—————————, Cian Galvin/Jack O'Neill
8. Malone —————————— ,Paddy Donnellon/David Conroy/Jack O'Neill
9. Taylor———————————, Sean Rynne/David Conroy/Jack O'Neill
10. David Fitz—————————-,Crotty/Mounsey/Keith Smyth
11. Rodgers——————————- ,Crotty/Conroy/Sean Rynne
12. Duggan ——————————- ,Crotty/Keith Smyth/Mounsey/Sean Rynne/
13. McCarthy—————————— ,David Reidy/ian Galvin/Shane Meehan
14. Kelly————————————,Aaron Shanagher /Jack Kirwan/David Reidy
15. O'Donnell—————————-,Ian Galvin/Shane Meehan/ David reidy /Jack Kirwan

A few Clonlara lads are gone but I don't think he is one of them , Rian considine from cratloe is gone Paraic O'Loughlin, Dylan McMahon from Clonlara, Killian O'Connor from corofin and keelan Hartigan from scariff are the ones I have heard of

He probably needs the time to properly recover from his injury, it's probably not too late for him next year to be called back, the injury couldn't have came at a worse time in his career

He was regarded as one of the better performers in the A v B games before the semis and final last year and was backing them performances up for Clonlara in the club championship

furious the football and hurling had to clash today , had the football been put back to even half 1 supporters would have been able to make both games

Got home to see the hurling but missed a few minutes at the start , while limerick were not full strength it still was an excellent win , conor leen and daragh lohan excellent in the full back line ,as was the older guard in cathal malone and john conlon in the half back line

the quality of ball into the full forward line was poor at times though and we seemed to needlessly put us under pressure at times , jack o'neill looks like a much better option in midfield or the half forward line i taught he was excellent at times , as was sean rynne , both made a few rookie errors at times but more then made up for it ,

the one take away point really is we wont get anywhere near the same time and space on the ball in 6 weeks time when the likes of daragh o'donovan and will o'donohue are back for limerick , whatever about relegation its important now we kick on next week and back up the performance against cork and the same against tipperary in a few weeks time , they will act as great tests before the start of the championship

just looking at this back and remembering the last time clare played kildare in the football league , this lad was sitting behind me , what many people dont know is he was a serious underage footballer , what they also dont know about sean rynne is he is an absolute trouble maker

on this day he took it upon himself to clap every clare score right into my ear . my left ear in particular . after 3 or 4 scores i told him to stop , he said it would never happen again , after the next score i told him i would pull the head off his shoulders and **** down his neck!!…..😂 eventually he got the message , while he is going to be a serous hurler i think we have another fingers o'connell on our hands 🤣

player ratings from last weeks two games from the clare echo , maybe a bit generous to one or two , but if i had my way conor leen would be an 8/10 , you will have to buy the paper to find out why

Hurling v Limerick

1: Eibhear Quilligan 7,

22: Conor Leen , 7,

3: Darragh Lohan ,7,

7. Adam Hogan, 7,

5: Cian Galvin ,7,

6. John Conlon ,7,.

22: Seán Rynne ,8.

8. Cathal Malone ,7,

9: Ryan Taylor , 7,

10. David Fitzgerald ,8,

11. Mark Rodgers ,7,

26. Jack O’Neill ,8.

13. Aidan McCarthy ,7.

14: Tony Kelly ,9.

15. David Reidy ,7.

18: Shane Meehan ,6.

12: Patrick Crotty ,6.

19: Aron Shanagher , 6,

two big games tomorrow , starting with the footballers trip to sligo , its a chance to go joint top of the division ahead of the laois game next saturday , its not the end of the world if we dont win givin the last two games are against two promotion chasing teams and because we have the head to head with kildare , but it would be great to carry on the good run of form

sligo have had a poor league but going on their last result away to fermanagh it looks like they are sorting themselves out , they have been one of the few counties that have struggled with the new rules and especially in midfield ,alan mcgloughlin and eoin smyth from the counties success's at underage have been bright sparks through out the league as has cannice mulligan , they also have niall murphy back after his club exploits with strandhill in the all ireland club so they wont be any pushover

the clare team is starting to look stronger with the return of dermot coughlin from injury , he is likely to start from the bench again like last week m but it remains how much impact Sean McAllister and Evan Cahill will play after both lined out for the u20s today in there loss to waterford in doonbeg

emmett mcmahons older brother rory is lined out to start ahead of the injured ciaran downes who went off with an injury late in the kildare game

the only silver lining i can add to today is , the last time the all ireland hurling champions got relegated they went on to win the all ireland that year , we couldnt be further away from that at the moment ,we have 6 weeks to catch up but we have a lot of catching up to do in that time

trips to carlow ,down , kildare and antrim are now on the cards for next season ,if nothing else it will be a great oppertunity for the younger lads on the panel to get more game time

hard luck to the footballers , sligo starting to turn there season around it seems , they were good against fermanagh last week away and backed it up with the narrowest of wins today , ikem had a goal disallowed for a square ball and dermot Coughlin narrowly missed a two pointer to level the game with the last kick of the game

if the footballers beat laois and offaly over the next two weeks they will most likely get promoted

it is worrying as teams need to be seen to be improving game by game now , we regressed dramatically from last week , i dont ever think i have seen clare concede 6 goals in a game and the 6-15 to 0-11 from play is a daming statt

i am more annoyed as a supporter that the preparation for this game was basically ignored , we started two players that were nowhere near match fit in a game we needed to win , and the lack of intensity from last week in limerick tells me we trained heavy this week instead of sharpening up on our short game and first touch , and playing so many players out of position tells me management were not interested in wining and got badly punished as a result

Lohan will only use them lads as impact subs same as Ian Galvin , no matter how good they are going at club level or in training they are only ever going to be used off the bench

In fairness it worked for the all Ireland final , cian Galvin will probably be the same when diarmuid Ryan returns too

It seems there are certain players he sees as impact subs and nothing else

i have a few external contacts to the panel . its very hard to get good information at times since lohan took over , but at the end of 2023 early 2024 both Meehan's and mounseys families were told by lohan directly that they would only be used as impact subs in the same vain as ian galvin is used and if they wanted to leave the panel or go the the footballers they could , both played a fair share of football , meehan was in the top 5 minors in the country as a top scorer at the time , but it worked out last year

one friend of mine is an uncle of a current panel member , his mother has no idea how well he is doing in training , the only thing she dose know is her son was training last saturday up a hill in rockmount outside ennis and on sunday morning on top of that before lining out against cork

if Davey fitz adopted these training methods back in the day we would be bulling , which i am personally but it better pay off if we dont get out of munster this result last sunday cant be forgotten

absolutely brilliant , i couldnt make it to portlaoise tonight but mark barry ran the show in the first half a fantastic footballer , at half time clare fm brought on keiran lilis former laois and portlaoise manager he was shouting mad for us amazingly givin his services to laois football himself and his son

the lad i felt sorry for tonight is killinan roche , a really sound lad and is now probably laois's most important players , its quiet possible he would be our keeper this year in stephen ryans absence , he kicked 2 2pointers tonight more then any clare player

another brutal start followed by a strong finish , the strong finish each week seem to have a lot to do with dermot coughlin coming off the bench , great second half by emmett and eoin cleary too