*Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
KILMIHIL players will not be returning to the Clare intermediate ladies football panel in advance of the championship.
Clare’s intermediate ladies football side took last week off following the conclusion of their National League campaign where they narrowly avoided back to back relegations and a stint in the bottom tier.
Injuries and absenteeism was a constant for the Clare squad with manager Graham Shine pointing out, “we didn’t have our full squad for any game this year”.
Generally it is the best team that prevails when it comes to championships and in Clare it was the Timmy Ryan managed Kilmihil that deservedly claimed senior honours last season. They won the senior championship for a second time when beating Banner Ladies 1-15 1-8 at the beginning of October in Doonbeg.
Three rounds of the non-county player league have been played in Clare and results from this competition are hard to gauge with some hammerings dished out with Banner Ladies failing to score in their most recent outing. That said, Kilmihil continue to impress and will certainly be in the shake-up for honours when it comes to championship.
Thirty players were listed on the Clare panel for their final league game against Roscommon. The names may have changed from game to game but one constant has remained the complete absence of any Kilmihil panellists.
This will remain the position come championship with manager Shine confirming to The Clare Echo that they will not be adding any Kilmihil players to the county panel in the next month. He did point out that over a handful of Kilmihil footballers turned down the opportunity to join their panel in the winter.
When asked about preparations for championship and whether any members of the county championship Kilmihil winning team could be added to the Clare panel, Shine replied, “We invited in eight of them at the start of the year and they all declined, we can’t do anymore, if you get an invitation and you can’t come in for different reasons and different commitments then Clare just has to plough on and we will plough on”.
For last season’s All-Ireland intermediate quarter-final defeat to Monaghan, Kilmihil were represented on the starting team by corner forward Edel McNamara with Ailish Considine introduced as a substitute. Considine the former Australian Rules player received less game time under Shine than his predecessor Wayne Freeman.
From the 2025 championship winning Kilmihil side, centre back Ellie O’Gorman is a former Clare captain, goalkeeper Micaela Glynn also manned the posts for the county side and midfield pairing Carol O’Leary and Laura Egan are also former starters for the county side.
Ex All Star nominee Eimear Considine has returned to action this season following the birth of her second child and is impressing at full forward during the club league.
