*Eoghan Gunning in action against Cork’s Barry Walsh. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
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CLARE are a big stadium team and will relish the chance of lining out in FBD Semple Stadium for Sunday’s All-Ireland U20 final.
Captain Eoghan Gunning will lead Clare into battle as the county looks to lift the James Nowlan Cup for the fifth time.
He won’t turn twenty until September but Eoghan has only emerged as a fan favourite among the Banner die-hards, due to his tenacity, leadership and also his ability to burst out of defence at pace. The fact that he is a nephew of the iconic PJ ‘Fingers’ O’Connell certainly has hurt Eoghan’s standing among Clare supporters.
Versatility has seen Eoghan line out at midfield for the U20s last season while with Broadford and Scariff Community College he has been positioned in attack. The current preference is at corner back, he confirmed. “I don’t mind where I’m playing, I love playing so if I’m asked to play in the forwards or midfield I’ll do it, I do have a bit of a soft spot for corner back too because I’ve played there a lot over the years, it doesn’t matter to me but for now I love playing corner back”.
Often playing from the front, when he tears out with the sliotar in his hand, you’ll hear plenty supporters shout ‘A bhoy Gunning boy’ with the occasional Banner roar thrown in. “It happens sometimes, tempers rise and I remember in the semi-final I got a ball and I couldn’t help but give a fist pump so sometimes it has to be done, there can be huge moments like that and we had them the last day with Robert Loftus catching a ball over Oisin O’Donoghue, Mattie O’Halloran got a hook in at the last minute, there were huge boosts for the team and you can get power from anywhere in the team”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, the captain detailed that they were clear in their objectives on what they wanted to achieve in 2026. “It was very much focused on the Munster championship but we did say it in our analysis with Paul Flanagan that the goal was to get to a Munster final and win it, then go on and win the All-Ireland final, it is very real now that we have got past Munster which is a bit of a jungle but we got over the line and there’s a huge buzz for the All-Ireland final”.
Now in his third year on the U20 panel, this marked the first season where Clare prevailed in a Munster final at the grade since 2014. “Sometimes things go your way and other times they don’t, we worked seriously hard this year and there was no way that the rub of the green was going to affect us even if it didn’t go our way, it’s been a huge effort from everyone and we’ve been extremely locked on to the principles and going after everything, every ball and every play matters in our environment”.
Gunning added, “It is a mindset thing, we sat down at the start of the year, we had some hard truths thrown us at us and decided we wanted to give it everything, somedays when you leave eveyrhting on the field it leaves it a lot easier and you will have no regrets, we’ve left everything on the field every day we go out, that is a huge reason why we are Munster champions now”.
Big games and venues suit this panel of players, the Broadford native believed. “It is the tough battles that you look back on and you really enjoy, look at the first two days in The Bridge against Waterford and Limerick, we just about got over the line but it was huge grit and battling which got us over the line. When we got down to Thurles and to Páirc Uí Chaoimh twice then we got to express ourselves a bit more in the big stadiums, we always say in this group that we’re a stadium team and we really did express ourselves on them days”.
Opening rounds saw Clare record one score victories over Waterford and Limerick, they did not play to their potential but demonstrated plenty of character. “That was a huge thing for us, we knew if we could get that fight that the hurling would show, we looked at our shot efficiency at the start which was extremely poor, it wasn’t to our standard but once we got that up and started hurling more fluidly and imposed our game on other teams, there was no fear of us and we were flying it”.
All members of the panel have been kept on their toes by management not having a fear of making changes. “It is unbelievable that the panel we have is hugely strong, we do our trainings during the week and if we get a chance on a Saturday or Wednesday to do a really tough session and a match then it gives everyone a chance to put up their hands. To be fair to the management, if you put up your hand whether it is Clare Cup or training, they will throw you in, we have so many lads in the thirty eight that have put up their hands to start and be in the thirty eight panel”.
Whether it was their minor successes in 2023 or the Munster final win a fortnight ago, Gunning and this panel of players have enjoyed unforgettable occasions in saffron and blue. “They are great days, we just about got over the line. It is important to say I don’t agree with the penalties, we lost before on penalties, it is an unfair way to lose and an unfair way to win. The celebrations were unbelievable, a lot of hard work went into it, we had the pain of losing and to be able to bring the cup around East Clare was a great experience”.
Holding a replay would be more suitable than deciding a game on penalties, he felt. “We had a week between the Munster and Leinster final so there was definitely scope to put in a replay but it wasn’t in our control so we just played it the way it was, thank God we came out the right side”.
Spectators among the 6,442 in the Gaelic Grounds were treated to another brilliant victorious speech from Gunning. Composing the speech is something, he likes to tick off well before games. “It was something I wanted out of my head so I just wrote it a couple of days before, I gave it to Andrew Fahey then and said ‘please God you’ll be able to give that to me later on’, I didn’t want to be worried about it too much, it made it easier”.
According to the first year primary teaching student at Mary Immaculate College, the Clare supporters have really drove the panel of players on. “They have been great all year whether it is The Bridge, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Thurles or the Gaelic Grounds, they’ve really been behind us. Clare people really get behind a team that works hard, we’ve been working our best to do that, the Clare crowd has been brilliant at getting behind us and hopefully it will be the same on Sunday and they will come out in their thousands again”.
Sunday is a rematch of the 2023 All-Ireland minor final with Clare and Galway once more battling it out for a national title, from the get-go it was earmarked as the likely final pairing. “People would have said that before but it comes down to the two teams who wanted it the most, we really wanted this Munster championship, it could have went either way, Tipp had their chances too, credit to our group, we’re extremely focused, we got over the line, Galway didn’t have as much of a struggle as us but we’re very much focused on ourselves for the All-Ireland, if we can get to the level that we showed in the Munster final and go up again then there will be no fear of our group”.
An occasion like an All-Ireland is to be embraced and not feared, Gunning maintained. “It is another game but a huge game for us, we love going to Thurles, any day over the last five years going back to minor we love going out in Thurles and performing, it is one of the greatest places to play, we will really embrace it now, we’ve a week to get it right and get things up again, we’ll see how things go”.
