*Cian McAllister on the attack for Clondegad. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLONDEGAD’s footballers toasted their Garry Cup success but were adamant they have “bigger fish to fry” as they turn their attentions towards trying to win promotion back to the senior ranks.
In what was a tumultuous Garry Cup campaign for all teams involved where heading into the final round only one of the eight teams knew their fate and seven remained in contention for promotion. In the end, Clondegad and Kildysart sealed a return to the Cusack Cup but also clashed in the second tier decider.
Fiachra Kirby’s goal in the last act of the opening half proved a decisive score as Clondegad prevailed 1-17 0-17 against their neighbours in Páirc Cuar an Chláir on Friday evening.
Relegated from the Cusack Cup in 2024, Clondegad reached the semi-finals last season but made sure to bounce back this time round alongside their neighbours who jumped back at the first attempt.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Clondegad manager James Murrihy said the win served as “a stepping stone. This was the cherry on top of the cake, the goal was to get back up to the Cusack Cup and playing at a higher level against all the senior teams, no more than Kilrush and Corofin would have done, Corofin got relegated from the Cusack Cup and won the intermediate championship so those games stood to them in good stead, the games will stand to Kilrush in good stead too. Hopefully next year, fingers crossed we might be in a different situation but we draw a line under the sand for the league, we will reset again, most of the boys will be playing eight or nine weeks in a row so we have to get ourselves set for the championship”.
For the long-term development of their youthful side, competing in the Cusack Cup is “massive” according to Murrihy. “Tadhg (Ó hUallacháin) is an outlier on the team at thirty six, there isn’t anybody else over thirty, they’re sparse at that side, the average age of the team is 20/21, they were in the U21A final last year. We were down a few players tonight with injuries, no more than Kildysart and it’s great to see Emmet (McMahon) back on the field, I know he came on and kicked a couple of points against Longford but he has been out for so long that if we had Emmet from a county perspective we probably wouldn’t have been knocked out of the Tailteann Cup. From a Clondegad perspective, it is good for the development of the team because winning is a habit but we will press the reset button and go again for a new competition for three weeks time”.
Winning the Garry Cup is a timely lift ahead of their Clare IFC campaign. “The focus is Wolfe Tones in three weeks time, not for one minute am I dissing what Kilrush did last year, they played unbelievable football against St Breckans in the Garry Cup final but they met their watershed in the quarter-final and Cooraclare ambushed them, that is something to be mindful of, you don’t have to go too far at inter-county level, look at Donegal where are they now, not everything is about the league, this was the cherry on the top but we move on. The celebrations were muted somewhat because hopefully we have bigger fish to fry down the road”.
Similarly facing off in a local derby brought an intensity that would be lacking in any other form of championship preparation, James maintained. “We would be playing a challenge game somewhere around the county if we weren’t here and we’d be looking at giving lads a half an hour or forty minutes, you’d get half the intensity whereas a lot of the boys know each other, they’re friends, they have a pint together and went to school together. It is funny, going way back in the time, myself and Niall Guinane looked and said if we both weren’t in the position we were in we’d probably play a challenge game against each other this time of year, it just so happened that there was a bit of silverware on the line”.
Though they won the league this season, the Kilmurry Ibrickane clubman felt Clondegad played better football in the 2025 Garry Cup. “In an overall sense, we were down a lot of players when we went down to St Breckans in the semi-final last year but we probably played better I thought last year in it. We topped the table with nine points out of fourteen and we had two half-bad games of football over the seven games, for us it was probably a bonus that we had the month off with the dual players that we have, there is a lot of them playing week on week so it was massive for us to get the month off and manage that, we were probably a little bit fresher because Kildysart were fighting for their lives against Wolfe Tones, then they went down and I actually left at full-time so I didn’t see extra time or the penalties of the semi-final against Doonbeg but it was absolutely epic”.
As they focus turns to trying to return to the senior grade which they were relegated from in 2023, Clondegad appear to be well aware of their best fifteen with Morgan Garry at centre back and Seán McAllister particularly influential. “You have ups and downs with everything that goes, people look and say all lads are in the county but are not getting game time but they train at a higher level, no matter what way you go about it. Morgan didn’t see a whole pile of league time, Seán spent a lot of time injured but being in and around that development helps, Fergal Ginnane with Kildysart didn’t see a lot of game time and same with Diarmuid O’Donnell but it is better than club training, no more than anything else a couple of lads got their first game of the year tonight which is massive for us, we are getting fellas back at the right time which is the main thing”.
