*Clare senior football manager, Paul Madden. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
MORALE VICTORIES are of no interest to Clare’s footballers in 2026, senior manager Paul Madden has stressed.
Clare’s senior footballers lay claim to some of the most genuine Gaels around in their support base but for too long there has been a tendency to take comfort in coming close but not getting results.
Given the talent within the county ranks fighting for promotion to Division 2 is the shared aim of all involved with the Clare set-up.
It’s why manager Paul Madden was frustrated leaving Páirc Esler in Newry on Saturday when his side coughed up the opportunity to defeat one of the fancied sides for promotion.
Having built a five point half-time cushion after outscoring Down 2-4 0-5 in the second quarter, Clare then went six points in front on the restart before squandering the lead and falling to a five point defeat.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Madden stated, “I’d be very disappointed that we lost the game, I think to be fair we were in a position to go and win the game, I didn’t think there was a whole pile between the teams, we weren’t as efficient as them in the first half, they had seven out of nine shots, we had seven wides, two or three of them we could have recycled but there was a lot of good shots and they were the right thing to do, we just didn’t execute them”.
Lessons were learned by the new management on how to better deal with Down who defeated Clare by seventeen points in the 2025 All-Ireland SFC. “Last year, we got physically turned upside down by these guys, that was a target that we weren’t going to be and I thought physicality wise and fitness wise we were absolutely a match for them. The two or three of their main players, I thought we did okay with them even though (Odhran) Murdock got in for the goal at the end, he is a good player and their goalie is one of the best around, we won forty nine percent of their kickouts in the first half so we did really well in a lot of facets of the game, we have to focus on that now because we have a game next week”.
On whether it was more of a case of Clare losing the game as opposed to Down winning it, the Ennis man commented, “You could look at it like that because we were ahead and we gave away a few turnovers unnecessarily but lads were under pressure at that stage, they kicked a few good scores, we gave away some silly scores, I thought the goal they got in the second half was a big score for them, we had gone six points up, it was a tough one to give away and it was back to three when two pointers became available to them with a very strong breeze, we were always under pressure and we fought to the end, we never gave up and that was really encouraging”.
Should the opportunity arise later in the year, Clare would have no fear of facing Down again, he said. “It wasn’t a five point game, I have no problem admitting that Down won the game and hats off to them but we would love the opportunity to meet them again but that is not on the horizon any time soon, from our perspective it was definitely not a five point game but we’re not interested in moral victories, that is what it will feel like but the minute we got on the bus we had a quick chat with the lads and it’s all about Westmeath”.
