Category: Sport

IN ACCORDANCE of the views of the delegates on the night, Secretary Michael Fitzpatrick, in his annual report, also expressed the need to alter the structure of the adult championships.

As part of his review of the year, Fitzpatrick looked into various aspects of the adult competitions.

“I feel we will have to look at our senior championship again as Coolmeen ran into problems with fulfilling their matches. Also I think the league should be over before starting the championship.

“We need to look at our structures in 2012 and another aspect is the inclusion of second teams from clubs in the adult lower grades as it happened again this year that clubs pulled their second team out, prior or during the competition, also not willing to name their first 15 players.”

In a comprehensive report, Fitzpatrick thanked all clubs and county teams for their efforts in 2011, particularly the senior side who captured the National League Division 3 title, and wished them the best for 2012.

“We may not have won many laurels in 2011 but congratulations to David O’Brien and his team on winning the Division 3 League and also to the five players who were picked on the Division 3 Team of the League (Lorraine Kelly, Louise Henchy, Niamh Keane, Niamh O’Dea and Eimear Considine). Also to David O’Brien on being Manager of the Month for May.”

“To the 22 clubs, I wish you all the best for 2012 and to the incoming board, the best of luck for the new season.”

OUTGOING Treasurer Christy O’Connor received the biggest applause of the night for his long service to Clare Ladies Football. Associated with the board since 1988, the Coolmeen clubman served under five different chairpersons during his various terms and on this his sixth successive report as Treasurer, he also reported an annual profit of € 10,844.22 and an overall balance of € 27,890.96.

However, that healthy position came with a caveat to the incoming treasurer as expected transport costs of approximately € 8-9,000 are imminent in the New Year.

O’Connor also told the delegates that gate receipts ‘held their own’ in 2011 (14,107) with only a slight decrease from the previous year, with income totaling € 107,712.37 while expenditure amounted to € 96,908.15.

A large bulk of both totals centred around Club Registration and the distribution of same to various central boards and the injury scheme. Church Gate Collections also made up € 8,300.77 of the income total while senior team expenses were € 11,742.90.

Avenue United 0 – Connolly Celtic 1 at Lisdoonvarna

AN EARLY Christmas treat for Connolly Celtic who turned their cup agony into cup ecstacy on Sunday when taking the notable scalp of Avenue Utd. Almost two months ago, the First Division side were heartbreakingly edged out by Bridge Celtic in the Division 1 League Cup Final after a two hour endurance battle that went all the way to sudden death penalties.

This game could have easily strayed into an extra period as well but for a dogged Connolly performance that saw them simply refuse to yield despite the expected Avenue backlach. Indeed, the victory was made all the more admirable when you consider that Connolly lost regular goalkeeper Niall Quinn in the warm-up and had to use outfield player Brendan Field as the stand-in goalkeeper from the outset.

Economy was the key to their first half advantage after taking the lead as early as the ninth minute with what was their only real meaningful shot on target in the half. It stemmed from a pinpoint Mickey Byrnes cross from the left that was met by the onrushing Kieran Dillon to nestle his header into the top left corner of the net.

It arguably came against the run of play as it was the Ennis side who had done all the early running and were enjoying particular success down the left wing where young duo Dylan Casey and David Smyth proved difficult to police. However, a serious ankle injury to Casey midway through the half disrupted their flow and while his replacement David McCarthy had several attempts at goal, including a rasping effort that was excellently parried by Field, the back-to-back Clare Cup champions remained frustrated.

There were also penalty claims at both ends before the break but both were deemed too theatrical while Barry Nugent had a late first half effort tipped away as Connolly held out to the interval.

The second half was much more open and conducive to counter-attacking football as Avenue altered their formation to three at the back in the hope of unlocking the Connolly defence while the leaders also switched right-back Alan Markham to the wing to menacing effect.

Indeed, Markham was influential at both sides of the field on the restart, first when getting back to deny McCarthy what should have been the equaliser and then later on when repeatedly breaking down the right, only for the final ball on each occasion to let him down.

As the half progressed, Avenue became more and more desperate which resulted in some ambitious long range shooting from Mikey Mahoney and Barry Nugent in particular that never troubled goalkeeper Field.

Avenue had better luck with David Smyth’s 73rd minute free that seemed destined for the corner of the net, only for Field to match it with a great diving save. Down the other end, Avenue goalkeeper John Healy also had to be alert to keep out a Kenneth Kennedy volley in the 86th minute, a goal which would have surely sealed the win.

In the end however, that second goal wasn’t necessary as despite several goalmouth scrambles that could have easily nestled in the Connolly net, Avenue were simply unable to break down a stubborn rearguard, marshalled supremely by Kieran Dillon.

Christmas came early for Connolly with their present, a fourth round home tie against Limerick superpowers Pike Rovers in the New Year.

A MOVE by county board secretary Pat Fitzgerald to reduce the number of county board meetings to six each year has been deferred for consideration at a Special Convention on January 15 next.

This decision was taken by delegates to Thursday’s Convention, amid claims from county board chairman Michael O’Neill that some county board around the country have as little as two county board meetings during the year.

The motion, tabled by the Sixmilebridge club on behalf of Mr Fitzgerald, was one of two on the Convention Clár that dealt specifically with county board meetings – the other from the St Joseph’s Miltown, which called for 11 county board gatherings during the year was also deferred.

“For many years we’ve had similar structures,” said Fitzgerald in outlining his argument for change. “In many businesses, if they didn’t change for a number of years, then we know what would happen.

“It would afford the opportunity to have debate. The text of the motion is incidental. I am just putting forward my reasons.

“I believe there are many issues of concern in Clare GAA. You may say why didn’t I write about them, but I feel it may not have been in the best interests to address them in that fashion.

“I do feel that there is a need for change, but most of all, we would all agree that in recent years, particularly in the past couple of years, with emigration and migration.

“We did a survey last year (on player emigration) and we tried to do it again this year. It is absolutely frightening.

“The place address these critical issues which are going to confront our association in the near future is with the key people in the association. The key people as far as I am concerned are the leaders of the clubs. The elected people in the clubs,” he added.

The secretary’s motion argued that six county board meetings would involve the chairman or secretary of each club, the board delegate and senior team manager being present.

A number of delegates to Convention backed the motion.

“The workings of board meetings needs to be review and restructured and this motion will help to achieve that,” said Kilrush Shamrocks delegate, Colm Browne. “It might be a step forward for tonight, but it is timely.

“There is a disconnect at times be- tween what happens at board meetings and what’s reflected on the ground in clubs and the message that’s relayed at board meetings is not the message that’s agreed at club meetings – the opinion of the club doesn’t come through.

“Getting the key people in clubs into meetings is critical because the issues that the GAA is facing in terms of migration and numbers and finance, there needs to be a reconnection between the clubs and the executive. The only way you can do that is by having meaningful meetings,” he added.

“This is an effort to have quality before quantity,” said Cratloe delegate, Flan O’Reilly. “We are beginning to realise that the GAA is more than the officers. There needs to be more of a calculated input from the clubs and this is an attempt to do this.

“I would like to support the motion,” said Cooraclare delegate, PJ McGuane, “particularly because with it we’re going to get the motion a month in advance. There is a disconnect”.

“If we pass this, it’s going to anchor us down,” said Tulla delegate Michael O’Halloran. “It’s going to anchor us down to a situation where we discuss football matters for one hour and hurling matters for one hour and then we have general discussion.

“When I was young we had a holy hour. If you weren’t spiritually in- clined it was an endurance. If some of us had to sit through codes we’re not particularly interested in, we have great difficulty with this.

And, Allowing secretaries of subcommittees call meetings, I think it is a total and absolute recipe for disaster,” added O’Halloran.

“We are asking that there would be 11 meetings in the year,” said St Joseph’s Miltown delegate, Noel Walsh, in opposing the notion of only having six board meetings a year. “If we reduce our number of meetings to six – if it’s passed we would probably be the only county in the association who don’t hold a monthly meeting,” added Walsh.

“I can assure you that that isn’t true. There are counties who hold two and maybe four meetings a year,” countered board chairman, Michael O’Neill.

“I was astonished that after the June meeting of the county board, we didn’t come back until the middle of September for the next full county board meeting,” responded Walsh.

“This was despite the fact that the intervening months were a hive of activity at club level, county level and everything.

“It’s better to be talking at a county board meeting than to be talking in the pub, or talking out at the gate giving out. The place to be talking is at a monthly county board meeting or the Convention,” he added.

“Six meetings. There can be eight, nine, ten meetings. I don’t mind,” said Pat Fitzgerald. “The one thing I would say that the first meeting would be in February and then it would be up to the county committee to do two things – one, before the end of the meeting, they would set the agenda for the next meeting and would decide on when it would be held,” he added.

CLARE GAA have been called upon to make their new Michael Cusack Archive that’s now housed at its Áras Chiosóg headquarters in Clareabbey available to members of the public to view for research purposes.

In making the call, Br Sean McNamara, who donated the material to Clare GAA earlier in the year, said that granting public access to Michael Cusack papers he had collected over three decades was crucial to keeping the legacy of the GAA’s founding father to the fore.

“As you all know, nobody would be here tonight with Michael Cusack,” said Br McNamara. “During the past 30 years, I have been collecting materials dealing with the life and times of Michael Cusack.

“All the information I collected over the years – and being of an age that I may not be much longer on this planet – I have decided to make it available.

“Des Crowe suggested to me that the proper thing to do with it would be to give it to the county board. During the month of May, we spent many hours putting together the material.

“It consists of 14 folders of material – in other words there is in excess of 200 items. For those of you who may not know, all the material belonging to Michael Cusack is in the university of Galway.

“That is not much use to people, because it is almost impossible to get a look at it. I’m one of few to have seen the material, because last May I gave the university 12 items.

“By giving the material to the county board it means that people wanting to get information relating to Michael Cusack will be readily available. That’s readily available and I hope that this will happen,” added Br McNamara.

The Kilmurry McMahon man used the platform of Thursday’s Convention to launch a volley in the direction of Ennis Town Council, over what he called the local authority’s misrepresentation of Cusack’s proper place in GAA history.

“There are still people who think that the GAA was not the brainchild of Michael Cusack,” said Br McNamara rounding on detractors of the Carron man.

“It was Michael and Michael alone who thought up the founding of the Gaelic Athletic Association,” continued Br McNamara.

“There are a number of information boards in Ennis. It is located on Francis Street, close to where Clare FM was and it says ‘The GAA was the brainchild of PW Nally, 1857-91. He suggested his idea to his friend, Michael Cusack and active Fenian’.

“On both counts it’s wrong. It wasn’t PW Nally’s brainchild. It was Michael Cusack’s brainchild,” added Br McNamara.

THE game of football is not as we once knew it – that’s according to former Clare football selector of 25 years Noel Walsh who has said that if the number of consecutive handpasses is not curbed the game will have to be name changed to Gaelic Hand and Football.

The former chairman of the Munster Council, who was a Clare selector in the county’s Munster championship winning year of 1992, took his crusade to bring more foot passes back into the game to the floor of the annual Convention by way of a motion that’s now set to go forward to next year’s GAA Congress.

Walsh’s motion said: “When a team has completed three consecutive movements of the ball by hand or fist, the next move must be to kick the ball by foot”.

A similar motion from Ruan read: “The number of consecutive hand passes in Gaelic Football to be confined to a maximum of three. Penalty: – Free to the opposing side””

“There has been a considerable amount of discussion and negative talk about the amount of times in which the ball is being kicked – the lack of kicking,” said Walsh in putting forward his motion.

“We don’t want the handpass to be excluded at all, but we are allowing for three handpasses and then the ball has to be kicked.

“If it continues the way it’s going, as we saw in the All-Ireland semi-final (Dublin v Donegal) last year, there will have to be a proposal at some Convention asking for the game of Gaelic Football to be changed to Gaelic Hand and Football.

“This is because of the way it’s going – for every five deliveries of the ball by hand there is only one delivery by foot. We would hope that this motion will be on the Clár for Congress,” he added.

IN the same week that the county senior football team has been rated as the second worst team in Ireland, the Clare County Board has come out and defended its record of promoting the game in the county.

Clare’s deeply embarrassing rating was contained in a league table compiled by

CLARE County Board secretary Pat Fitzgerald will tell delegates to this Thursday’s annual Convention that “a more ruthless approach” will have to be taken with club fixtures and formats from 2012 onwards – a policy where “hard calls” such as the culling the number of senior clubs will be placed firmly on the agenda.

In his landmark 21

CUSACK PARK’S crowd capacity has not been reduced to maximum of 12,800 as was revealed by Clare County Board secretary Pat Fitzgerald and reported on by

THE AGM of Sixmilebridge GAA club took place at the clubhouse meeting room last Wednesday evening. In what was a sizeable attendance, all those present reviewed the past year which saw the Under 21 title return to the parish and the seniors qualify for a first county final in nine years.

Those in attendance received a comprehensive and very well structured review of the past year’s activities by joint Secretary Louise Corbett. She also paid tribute to all those who helped throughout the year and congratulated the minor club on their success, the Under 21 winning team and the seniors on reaching the county final.

Club members who featured on the Clare minor and intermediate winning teams were also congratulated. Best wishes were extended to clubmen David Fitzgerald (Clare senior hurling) and Eamon Fennessy (Clare minor hurling) on their managerial appointments while another clubman Sean Stack was congratulated on leading Na Piarsaigh to the Limerick and Munster titles. A minute’s silence was held in memory of all those who passed away in the parish and club in 2011 including club stalwarts Noel Murphy, Fr. Hugh O’Dowd and Theresa Quinn.

Treasurer Joan Keogh, in her first year at the helm, gave an in-depth breakdown on the financial side of things. The meeting also heard from club Development Chairman, Paddy Meehan, who informed those in attendance that the ambitious club development is now complete.

Club Chairman, P. J. Fitzpatrick, then gave his end of year report and thanked all involved with the club for their help over the past year. After his report he informed the meeting that he would be stepping down from his position after three years in the throne. Many tributes were paid to the outgoing Chairman from the floor for his tremendous work during his term and indeed in the years gone by. Another outgoing officer, Sean Griffin, was thanked for his trojan and dedicated work over the last number of years with co-ordinating the club lotto.

On the night Paddy Meehan was reappointed as Under 21 manager. He will again have Niall Gilligan, John O’Meara Jnr and Leo Quinlan on his management team as they bid to retain the Under 21 A crown in 2012.

A reconvened AGM will take place on Sunday, January 8 at 3 pm. This meeting will elect club officers and team management for 2012. THURSDAY NIGHTS Galway card was an all graded eight race programme with heats of various Christmas Stakes the order of the night The opening three contests were the three semi finals of the Xmas Parties S7 Sprint Stake and in the opening heat both Black Dragon(T1) and Ollys Molly(T6) were away well and they disputed the lead ahead of Manus Fantastic(T2) approaching the opening bend. Rounding the bend Manus Fantastic carried his rivals wide which allowed the Robert Carkhill & James Browne of Ennis owned trap five runner Elwick Ragtag(Head BoundRaggletagglrosie) to sweep through and score by 2&1/4 lengths in 19.86 The concluding heat sawthe Martin Keane of Kilmihil owned debutant Joinedupthinking(T3) register a fine debut success as after striking the front rounding the opening bend the son of Royal Imapact & FaceValue powered clear of his toiling rivals to record a 12&1/4 length success in 19.42. Reneharney Crash(T6) had led the field in the early stages but once Joinedupthinking sorted himself out there was only ever going to be one winner. In race 7 Keane was on the mark once again in this A4 graded 525 yard contest as his Clapton Master(Royal Impact-FaceValue) recorded his maiden career success by 4&1/4 lengths over Wood Crash(T6) in 29.51. Fromtraps Blackstormlady(T5) was smartly away but she was outpaced by the black jacketed Clapton Master on the run up. Kicking clear turning down the back the winner had his rivals in big trouble passing halfway

and although tiring close home he scored with plenty in hand. Race 4 was an A8 graded affair and as they raced towards the opening bend Susie Longsoxs(T2) and Lurgan Drifter(T6) raced neck and and neck before the latter took a definite advantage rounding the bend despite moving wide on the track. Racing down the far side Lurgan Drifter led by two lengths fromthe improving Jacksies Maeve(T4). With the leader again moving wide off the home bend the Martin Sexton of Miltown Malbay owned Jacksies Maeve(Ballymac Maeve-Jacksies Nicki) slipped through on the rail to score by half a length in 30.03. All six runners were away pretty much on terms in race 5 for this A4 graded 525 yarder with the red jacketed Sues Princess just showing the best early toe to lead round by a length fromDromoher Snoopy(T2). Racing down the back the order remained unchanged as the Johnny &Aoife Burke of Tubber owned Sues Princess maintained the tempo out front and the daughter of Head Bound & Boozed Lorraine gamely held her rival at bay by a head in 29.70. Races 7 & 8 on Friday nights card were heats of the Race Dogs A5 Stake and as the closely bunched field approached the opening bend in the first heat Clairwell Jewell(T3) and Manus Snowdrop(T4) just shaded their rivals with Slim Away(T1) and Contentious(T2) just in behind themas they turned down the far side. Racing past halfway Clairwell Jewell held the call but all the while theThomas Flanagan of Ennistymon owned Contentious was getting closer with every stride and striking the front turning for home the daughter of Droopys Kewell and Coldwar Baby scored by 3&1/4 lengths in 29.84. In the second semi final the Michael Costello & Douglas Culligan of Ballyvaughan owned Pinnacle Roxy(T3) was very smartly away fromtraps and the daughter of Boherduff Light & Coldwar Baby quickly opened up a three length lead on her rivals rounding the opening bend. Racing down the far side Pinnacle Roxy was clear of Willbrook Queen(T6) but fromthe third bend the gap began to close as Pinnacle Roxy began to tire in front but she summoned enough courage to last home by half a length in 29.57. Races 2-5 were all heats of an S5 Sprint Stake and in the opening heat Capuka(T2) was first to emerge but as the runners raced towards the opening bend the Ger Manley of Cratloe owned Confused Mark(T1) showed pace along the rail to take command approaching the opening bend. Despite running slightly wide on the crown of the home bend the son of Galway Mark & Confused Shasa stayed on well to defeat Willrose Junior(T6) by 1&1/4 lengths in 19.62. In heat three both Loyal Sue(T1) and Mythical Tar(T3) were both away quite well and the raced stride for stride to the opening bend two lengths clear of MissThe Sunset(T6).As the leaders rounded the bend the John Keane & Frank White of Ennis owned Mythical Tar cut to the rail and the son of Boherduff Light and Coldwar Baby quickly settled the contest as he drewaway to score by 4&1/4 lengths in 19.35.