This article is from page 85 of the 2008-01-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 85 JPG
THE real value of the McGrath Cup, for manager Frank Doherty, came with the opportunity to familiarise himself with the raw materials he has to shape.
At the start of the competition, he stood outside a dressing room in Miltown and said games were what mattered, that getting the most out of January was the target.
Clare have achieved that and are one game away from picking up
some silverware, the target has only SIUESA STON VASSOU BA KoLe
“What we’re getting is four games in January and in reality, 20 training sessions wouldn’t be as valuable as that,’ he says. “But I’m a great be- liever that winning is the best habit you can form. There’s are only four trophies that any county in Ireland can win from one year to the next, and the McGrath Cup is one of those. So it’s important that we go out in the right frame of mind — and we will.”
He’s aware, too, that Limerick will
prove to be more of a block in the road to success than the college teams Clare have faced so far. Colleges, by definition, don’t have the team spirit or ethos that define county teams and Sunday will allow Doherty gather more knowledge.
“Limerick will be a different ball game for us and we’re hitting them at a good time for us. Right before the league starts, it’s no harm to get a good, hard game under the belt.
“We want to win the McGrath Cup and in fairness, Mickey Ned
[O’Sullivan] will be just as anxious to do the same. So you’ll have two competitive teams going out on Sun- day and that’s useful for us.”
Doherty asked to run his mind over the campaign in general and pick out the positives. He points out enough to find some satisfaction in the three games So far.
“From what I’ve seen so far, the hunger seems to be coming back. That’s important and for us, the at- titude from the first game was right. Players were focused. On top of that,
a certain amount of passion that mightn’t have been there is starting to come as well.
“Lads are pushing themselves and pushing each other hard in train- ing. There have been a lot of pluses throughout the competition. The habit of winning is something that we want to develop. If we can keep in that zone, then that’s going to be a big boost going into the league.”
The hunger he speaks of is obvi- ous. Generally, his players have been starved of success on the county scene and he reckons that the vast majority of those involved in the squad will have something to prove on Sunday.
“Of the 33 lads we have in the panel, 25 or 26 of them have never contested a senior final for Clare. So that’s something. They’ll want to mark their first final with a win.
When I got involved I made it clear that I’d try and use as many lads as possible in the games and I think I’ve lived up to that – so we’re making full use of what’s available.
“There have been debutants and there have been lads that people might have thought weren’t good enough to make senior footballers. They’ve come in and done well. But we re learning a lot.”
Is he close to his team make-up for the league?
“I’d say we’re 90% sure of it now. A lot of the team that will start on Sunday will feature in the league. We might be without one or two lads against Limerick, but the team you’ll see won’t be too far off the mark.
“We have tinkered around with it from game to game and we’ve had to because we’ve got a small pool of players compared with other coun- ties and that brings positives and negatives. If we pick up injuries, we won’t have the reserves but lads get close to one another, they work well together and they know one another’s game. If you’ve a big pool of players, sometimes guys can shy away from things. They can duck down. That doesn’t happen with Clare.”
So far, the Doherty tenure has been a success. Getting something tang!- ble to go with the positive start is the next step.