This article is from page 128 of the 2008-02-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 128 JPG
THREE former football stars have highlighted a reluctance to play inter- county football on the behalf of some players as part of the reason for Clare football’s current low standing.
Odran O’Dwyer, Frankie Griffin and Aidan Moloney each pointed to a lack of commitment from players who should be making the current panel as a central element to the de- cline in recent years.
“It seems to me at the moment that a lot of players in Clare just don’t enjoy it and that’s why they’re not playing for the county,” said Griffin. “Maybe there’s too much involved — too much commitment.
“There are probably some better players out there, but some won’t commit themselves to it. Getting 30 good fellas committed to the thing 1s the problem.
“I don’t think we have that at the moment and there’s no easy solution
to Clare’s problems,’ added Griffin.
Moloney echoed his former Clare teammate’s words, saying he began his inter-county career during a pe- riod when Clare football was also at a low ebb.
‘“There’s no doubt that it’s a big commitment for players and when fellas don’t see a lot of success it’s hard to swallow. But in our time eve- ryone really wanted to play and we didn’t have much success for a lot of years either.
“There were a lot of dark days as well but we were always proud to wear the jersey and there was never a question of considering giving it hone O’Dwyer broadened the debate, saying Clare not only needs added commitment across the county, but also investment in the right places.
“If you take Tyrone as an example, they’ve 15 county coaches whereas we only have one football coach in Clare. That’s just not good enough.
People might say they get extra grant money from the British government, but why can’t Clare increase the number of coaches in the county? Something has to be done and invest- pneKo emp MA’s LED
“These days players have houses and mortgages — things we wouldn’t have had — so maybe they’d have oth- er priorities. But you have to ques- tion the attitude if players don’t want to play for Clare,’ added the former Compromise Rules International.