*Tony Kelly with his PwC GPA Player of the Month award for June. Photograph: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
CLARE’S SENIOR HURLING CAPTAIN, Tony Kelly has admitted he is at a loss to explain their exit from the All-Ireland SHC.
Kelly was named as the PwC GPA Player of the Month for June following an outstanding provincial campaign which resulted in Clare reaching the Munster final where they lost out to Limerick following extra time.
Despite the progression of the Munster bid, Clare fell short in the All-Ireland semi-final with a heavy 2-26 0-20 defeat to Brian Cody’s Kilkenny. On that occasion, the Ballyea sharpshooter was kept scoreless from play as the Cats managed to success nullify the Banner’s key threats.
Speaking after picking up his latest accolade, Tony said the Kilkenny display was “below par”. He added, “It’s hard to put your finger on it right now as to why. We haven’t really dissected it as a team yet, we probably won’t do so until we meet back up for next year, whenever that is. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong for us, obviously a lot did go wrong. In terms of accumulating everything that went wrong and seeing where everything did go wrong and how we could have addressed it won’t happen until later down the road”.
Kelly continued, “It’s probably hindsight when you look back. Look, we know the round-robin series, we’ve played in it ’18 and ’19 and this, the first year back after Covid, it is obviously a tough championship, if you do pick up injuries, you have to adapt to it”.
Undoubtedly the absence of centre-back John Conlon was a massive blow to Clare but the 2013 Hurler of the Year pointed to how Limerick were “able to adapt and still perform at a very high level” when without Cian Lynch and Peter Casey while retaining their Munster title. “I suppose you could dwell on it too long but the main thing for us is we’ve just got to try and get better — individually, collectively, we all have to get better in every facet of the game really”.
“There’s no point in feeling sorry for yourself or dwelling on it too much, you have to get straight back up and get back into it with your club, brush yourself down and look forward to a new inter-county season even though it’s probably a good few months away. That’s the nature of it. We’ve had crushing defeats before, and you’ve just got to try and get better and keep going”.
Year three of Brian Lohan’s tenure was positive but not necessarily a success, the St Flannan’s teacher surmised. “There has been progression this year in terms of our performance levels for the majority of the year and getting back to a Munster final for the first time since 2018, and a semi-final, so there has been progression and that’s down to the savage work that the players, and obviously Brian [Lohan] and the management, are doing. There’s obvious progression there. You probably don’t look back [on the good days] when you don’t win a piece of silverware. You don’t look back unless you’ve something concrete to show for your efforts really”.
“I wouldn’t call it a success. You can have a barometer or a measuring stick on success, it depends what you call it. I think success is when you actually win a Munster championship or win an All-Ireland. I think it’s progression, in terms of we’ve improved on where we were last year”.
His next season as an inter-county hurler will mark a decade since he won an All-Ireland title, in what was his second year as a Clare senior hurler. “Every hurler in the country is chasing it, and only 33 or 34 can get at it every year. But I suppose that’s the challenge that you like. You like trying to get better, you like trying to improve yourself again and try and have another cut off it next year. That’s just the nature of hurling,” he said of the ambition to win a second medal”.
The three-time All Star said this desire gets stronger the longer the wait. “It’s like a drug, you just become addicted to trying to get to an All-Ireland and win an All-Ireland. We’re no different in Clare, we’re trying to get back there. I suppose that 2013 team, I think there’s only five or six lads left from that panel. We have a completely new group. You’re basically trying to chase that feeling, to be totally honest. At the minute, we just have to get better and improve and have a cut off trying to get that again next year”.
