This article is from page 87 of the 2009-07-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 87 JPG
COLM Bonnar has won everything in the game but in all his years of playing and managing, has never had to endure the tension of a champion- ship relegation battle. However, that is what befalls his Wexford side this weekend as they prepare to take on Clare in Portlaoise.
All four sides are in unison in their aversion of the new system that pro- poses to relegate one side from the McCarthy Cup for 2010 but Wexford have good reason for their outrage as the Leinster side actually won a game in the championship against fellow relegation rivals Offaly before going down narrowly to Dublin and then Limerick in their subsequent outings. And the Tipperary native in only his first season in charge can- not fathom why the GAA are intent on punishing any side when instead, they should be promoting the game in these counties.
‘Really the players cannot under- stand why they have been brought down into a relegation battle after
winning our first game against Of- faly and were in a Leinster semi-fi- nal. Having said that, that’s what the rule is, even though we thought that the GAA would show sense and not ask any of the four teams to play in a relegation battle as there are so few teams playing for the McCarthy Cup. It’s just ridiculous in the extreme and when we actually get together for the first time this evening (Tuesday), I’m sure that the response will be very poor because there is huge apathy for these games. “When you see the foot- ball championship and they have the likes of London and New York into the Sam Maguire and here we have four hurling teams battling to avoid relegation. Antrim are doing so much work up north to try and keep hurl- ing alive and it’s encouragement and promotion they need rather than be hit like this. The other three teams, Wexford, Offaly and Clare are the only teams outside of the top three that have actually won All-Irelands in the last fifteen years. It just doesn’t make sense, I don’t know why they are forcing this on the players. The
players are just so disillusioned themselves having to play this, hav- ing just been beaten in the qualifiers. They were trying to get as far as they could in the McCarthy Cup and that was only a week and a half ago and to ask the players now to play a rel- egation series with the bottom side going down to the Christy Ring Cup is just an absolute joke.
“Clare are now in a similar boat to us in the sense that they have gone down to Division 2 and those games are not worth a shite to anyone. If they are trying to do anything for hurling, they should keep 14 or 15 teams together and let them try to promote it among each other. They just seem to want to go for an elite eight or ten teams for the McCarthy Cup and that’s it which is a crazy, crazy system and they are saying that they want to promote hurling in oth- er counties. I still can’t get my head around it.”
So caught up with the will they- won’t they scenario surrounding the Antrim situation, Bonnar hasn’t had time to conentrate on his opponents
Clare but after the sides met in a chal- lenge game before the championship, he admits that this game could really go either way.
“IT haven’t even thought one bit about the game really because [| al- ways thought that the GAA were going to see sense and that com- mon sense would prevail even up to last Saturday evening. I thought that surely something would happen that these four teams are not going to partake in this competition. We would have played Clare in Rathnure six weeks ago before both played the first championship matches. We know Clare are a tough physical team, they are strong, very fit and hugely commited and from what I gather, Wexford always had trouble playing Clare and their type of hurl- ing. We are rebuilding after we lost a lot of players through injuries and retirements and they are a huge loss and it’s kind of telling on us in terms of losing tight games. As regards Clare, they are disappointed with the year being relegated to Division 2 and did well enough against Tipp,
coming back and giving themselves a chance of going for an equaliser and then I would have given them genuine hope of beating Galway in Ennis but Galway did well again on the day. So nobody really knows the strength of Wexford or Clare hurling at the moment and this competition isn’t helping anyway, that’s for sure. You won’t see their best in this com- petition.”
With the clock ticking down though and Wexford now actually embroiled in the relegation series, Bonnar is de- termined that they must finish their campaign this weekend, rather than leaving it to the lottery of a final rel- See elem OE h are) ee
“Undoubtedly, the sooner you are out of this competition the better and the only way of doing that is to win the first game because at this stage, players just want to get back to their clubs. The ideal scenario for either team if this game is forced upon them is to win that game and you don’t have to worry about it anymore because if you don’t, it will just turn into a dogfight really.”