*Éire Óg manager, Shane Daniels. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
A FIVE-TIME Clare SFC winner as a player, Shane Daniels is bidding to win his first as manager this Sunday when Éire Óg take on neighbours St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield.
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SFC is with thanks to The Shannon Springs Hotel.
When Paul Madden’s successful stint as manager of Éire Óg which included ending a fifteen year wait to lift the Jack Daly and adding two more titles came to an end, it left big boots to fill but in stepped Shane who had been a selector to Madden and goalkeeper on the winning sides of 2022 and 2024.
Joining him in his management were his former teammates, 2006 Clare SFC winning captain Alan Malone and David Russell who had spearheaded Avenue Utd’s back to back Premier Division success and three Clare Cup title wins in six seasons. Ex Limerick footballer Seanie Buckley also returned to the fold after a season away with Michael Carmody and Victor O’Riordan maintaining their roles as performance and S&C coaches with Tom Russell remaining a vital part of the ticket.
Becoming manager saw Shane bring the curtain down on a twenty five year senior career with Éire Óg. “You always miss playing, there was always going to come a time where you’d say enough is enough, I was picking up a couple of injuries at the end of last year, I was very happy with my time playing so I can’t have any major qualms”.
How Cian Howard has assumed the role of goalkeeper “has been fantastic. He has worked extremely hard and that is getting to what I said at the start, this panel has worked so hard and Cian has worked extremely hard, he is up every night at training to improve, he wants to get better, the nights we are not training he is up and that is what it takes, you have to put the hours in and in fairness to Cian he has put the hours in. He has really bought into it, he is young and has loads of potential”.
On potential new additions to their team for Sunday’s final, he remarked,
“I don’t think we’ll see anyone new anyway”. He said, “Our squad is very competitive which is brilliant, we have guys that are dying to play, we have guys that are playing really well and getting limited game time, they are pushing and pushing which is part of it because you might not get game time all year but be called upon with twenty minutes to go and you could be the difference in the game so you have to be ready and focused, keep pushing and we’re lucky to have a squad that is really pushing”.
An experience and familiarity with how to approach people has been a big help for the bainisteoir. “I’m used to dealing with people, I’ve been doing it for a number of years and I’m used to dealing with people from growing up in a bar”. The Daniels family have ran The Aylmer’s Rest since 1997, it was formerly known as The Gallows.
There is a visible increase in the workload of a manager, the Turnpike man said. “You would notice it, it is a busy role because you are constantly organising stuff, you’re constantly looking forward at things whereas last year as a selector and player you’re more focused on the sessions, there is an awful lot of organisation that goes with the managerial side of things like contacting players outside of training, it is a fairly hectic role”.
One addition to his place has been interacting with Gerry O’Connor and the club’s senior hurling management to cater for their dual players. “Paul dealt with it for the last few years but it has always been a factor since I played with the club, we’ve always allowed it and we’re encouraging everyone to play what they want, that is the way the GAA is and people should be allowed play what they want, we’re very proud of the hurling side of things and I’m sure they are proud of the football side of things. I’d never ask anybody to not do something”.
Injury kept him out of the Éire Óg team to stop Doonbeg from winning a three in a row in 2000 while he tasted county final defeats in 2004, 2007 and 2014 along with success in 2006. He believed the work done by the club at underage level has led to them becoming the dominant force they are at present. “At the early part of my career we were successful enough in challenging, we were in a couple of county finals in 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2007, it was a decent period but we didn’t win enough, after that it dried up for a long time but I must say an extremely large volume of work has been done on the underage side of things, Bob O’Brien had a huge say in that when he started up the Academy. We’ve had really good people involved in the underage teams, the players were coming and they were hungry so the football was going to a higher standard.
“There was periods for a long time where we were just trying to survive. I know there is a theory out there that Éire Óg is a huge club, it is not, it is a small club, the town of Ennis is a big town but you’re pulling against rugby, soccer, St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield, Clarecastle, Ballyea, Lissycasey are all close enough, we are a really small club in a big town. This group has worked extremely hard, for the last four or five years we’re getting to semi-finals but for three or four years before that they really bought into it, a lot of that credit is down to Paul for starting that and we’re just trying to continue that, I haven’t enough good things to say about the squad because they work so hard and have done for the last nine years, that is how success comes”.
Employed by Johnson and Johnson as a People Manager, Shane has added a new role by agreeing to become a selector to Madden with the Clare senior footballers. “He asked me a question and I was a bit surprised by it. Myself and Paul have a good working relationship”.
Clare will not be his focus until the Éire Óg campaign concludes. “I’ve been extremely focused on the next couple of weeks, with the job being so busy too it is hard to focus on anything else. I’m really enjoying my time as manager at the moment, hopefully we can keep that going for as long as we can”.
He continued, “When Éire Óg finishes I will be properly involved, I haven’t had too much input so far but whenever Éire Óg finishes I’ll be going in. There’s loads of players in Clare, I’ve always said it that Clare is a really strong football county, even when we weren’t going too great we could travel to different counties playing challenge games and we’d always be competitive. There is no reason that Clare can’t have thirty lads at a really high standard and drive on”.
Part of the Clare panel from 2005 until 2007, a fellow panellist at the time was midfielder Ger Quinlan who is also part of Madden’s new management. “I know Ger a long time, he is a fantastic servant to Clare football, he was a brilliant footballer, a really good football guy and he will be a huge asset to Clare”.
At the beginning of August, Éire Óg defeated Doora/Barefield 4-12 0-14, at the end of the game he told his opposing number Donagh Vaughan that he expected the sides would meet again before the year was out. “We played them twice in the league and in the second round, you can see the work being done out there, I know Donagh (Vaughan) and Eoin (Troy) are doing fantastic work out there, any team that has the young players they have, a really enthusiastic manager and a really good coach then they are going to improve, I’m not surprised that we’re playing them in the final. I think I said it to Donagh after the game that I was sure we’d meet further on in the championship, we are coming up against each other again and credit to them because I know the work they have done, they have really bought into it which is huge, it is great for the county too because you want teams to get more competitive, pushing on and to get the most out of every player because it will filter into the county squad”.
“There will always be a rivalry, we’re right next to each other, we went to school together, we grew up together, a lot of them would be friends with each other, that is part of it too, what makes a rivalry is that both teams are good, sometimes people say there are rivalries but there is a bit of a distance between the teams and there isn’t a rivalry then, you can see there is a proper rivalry brewing because both teams are playing well, both teams want to improve,” he told The Clare Echo.
According to the forty two year old, Éire Óg have focused on bringing a better performance for each outing. “Our mantra all year has been to play what is in front of us, do our best and take the learnings from every single game, we come away from it, look at it and see what we can improve on, what aspects of our game we have improved on and what else we can improve on, we keep trying to improve and that is the name of the game for every team at the moment, you try be better than the last day and we’ll try be better the next day”.
