This article is from page 81 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 81 JPG
BACK in 2000 Ger Loughnane made a special guest appearance at the July meeting of the Clare County Board in the West County Hotel as a denouement to retirement after six years on the inter-county manage- ment carousel.
Loughnane addressed delegates and the county board top table that evening, in what was largely a night of mutual appreciation between eve- ryone in the hall and a celebration of all things Clare hurling.
Loughnane talked about the salad days, Clare’s unforgettable fire, how everyone worked together, how Mun- sters and All-Irelands were won and Ome er-l
However, there’s always a news line with Loughnane and there was that night in his final few words just before the appreciation of the crowd rained down on him.
“No tributes lads,’ he said. “Down to the future. Think of that and think of it fast,” he added.
Of course Loughnane was talking about the small ball, but he could have been talking about the big ball too.
Regardless of the code, there was no one listening – the results of which are where Clare GAA finds itself with its two flagship teams.
In football terms, things have never been so low – player indifference and a tacit acceptance of the county’s lot as being one of the worst in the coun- try is a damning indictment.
It shows up Clare as a football county totally lacking in ambition, pride and overall sense of purpose that goes hand-in-hand with wearing a county jersey.
Individual pride from the likes of Conor Whelan, David Russell, Michael O’Shea and others in repre- senting their county is without ques- tion, but collectively, the bald facts of the matter are that Clare couldn’t muster even a handful of training sessions between the defeat to Lim- erick in Cusack Park on June 7 and the All-Ireland Qualifier against Donegal on July 13 in Ballybofey.
That’s simply not good enough and
is worse than all the poor perform- ances over the last few years put to- exons
And all this after Clare had shown enough in a first half display against Limerick in Cusack Park to suggest that there could be some light at the end of the tunnel.
There was a belief in their play when they ran at Limerick, but rather than take the positives from the game and try to come again in the Qualifi- ers, they collectively turned the other cheek.
Contrast this attitude to how teams like Sligo, Tipperary and Wicklow approached the Qualifiers. Tipperary got back to training under manager John Evans (surely a Kerry manager
of the future) after their defeat to Limerick in the Munster quarter-fi- nal, went up to Louth and beat them.
Then they served up a brilliant second half display against Sligo in Semple Stadium, only to come up short by a point. However, even in defeat they showed enough in 2009 to believe that they will contend for Munster titles in the coming years.
As for Sligo, they didn’t throw in the towel after being beaten by Gal- way in Connacht – after all, it would have been easy for this to happen as many of the team could have been sated with their Connacht medals from two years ago.
No, they came again and beat Tip- perary in Thurles and should have
beaten Kerry on Saturday in serving up the greatest championship per- formance against the bluebloods of the game in Tralee since Clare drew there in 1950.
And, as for Wicklow – another D1- vision 4 team like Clare and Sligo – not much needs to be said about their All-Ireland Qualifer wins over Cavan, Fermanagh and Down in Aughrim.
Mick O’Dwyer will suffice.
Looking at Sligo, Tipperary and Wicklow, even another Division 4 team like Antrim who were only six points adrift of Tyrone in an Ulster final shows what can be achieved if WAMBO MAS (use
At player level across the county,
not just among the players who never fail to answer the county’s call.
At administrative level when you actually have a county board that really, deep down, wants to achieve Wen betcace
The only consolation is that things were just as low when John Maughan took over the Clare team in the Au- tumn of 1990 – they had just been beaten by Waterford in the first round of the National League and only 13 players turned up for Maughan’s first training session in Crusheen.
Maughan came to that session wear- ing a Mayo jersey, but ceremoniously took it off in the dressing room and put on a Clare geansai.
“We were instilling a little bit of discipline and a small bit of direction and it took off,” said Maughan.
Time for another lift off, but as Ger Loughnane said, “Down to the future, think of that and think of it fast.”
It’s in Clare football’s own hands.