This article is from page 103 of the 2009-12-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 103 JPG
CLARE All-Ireland Under 21 win- ning heroes have been challenged to move on to the next level with the county by stepping up to the senior plate and trying to bring the Munster and Liam McCarthy cups back to the reel ANe
It was a challenge thrown down by All-Ireland Under 21 winning man- ager John Minogue when addressing players and Clare County Board offi- cials at Friday night’s medal presen- tation in the West County Hotel.
“The players have been magnifi- cent,” said Minogue. “The effort and the commitment they have shown has been wonderful. They have all had hectic years being involved with their clubs while some were involved with the senior team. In addition to this many are working or else study- ing and it was very hard to travel from colleges and far away but they did and that’s why were here today with a title in our hands.”
For Minogue, however, this A\ll- Ireland cannot be the final stop on Clare’s journey to even greater suc-
cesses. He put the question to his players, where do we go from here? The simple answer, he volunteered, is that more hard work, and plenty of it, can yield even greater harvests.
“Have you the commitment to go forward?” he asked. “You have to,” he added defiantly.
“People of Clare need you to, the county team needs you, the county board as well, we all want you to progress and grow and to try and make us even happier than 2009.”
Minogue then turned to his back- room team. “I have to thank them for
their efforts,’ he said, “and for their commitment, their mentoring and every positive thing they carried out. We had a big panel of players and there was a lot to be done and con- trolled. The four of us worked well with one another and thankfully it all gelled together”.
Now to see if things can be gelled back together at senior inter-county level. Minogue has publicly stated that he doesn’t covet the job — he let that be known in the hours after Clare’s epic triumph over Kilkenny in September.
Who knows. That no could very well become a yes over the next few weeks. We’ll just have to wait and see.