*Brendy Rouine in action for Clare. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
GROWING IN BELIEF thanks to an uninterrupted run of games, Brendy Rouine is standing tall as one of Clare’s most consistent performers under new manager Paul Madden.
Four years on from making his first appearance for the Clare senior footballers, Brendy now aided by a clear-run without injuries has started five games in a row for the very first time for the county seniors.
Though he featured in all four of Clare’s championship outings in 2022 from the bench, kicking two points in his debut against Limerick in the Munster quarter-final which saw the Treaty County prevail in a penalty shootout and appearing in Croke Park as part of the last Banner side to line out in the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals, losing comprehensively to Derry, this is his first season as a member of the starting team.
That frustrating spell of injuries kept him sidelined for Colm Collins’ final championship in charge a year later and Mark Fitzgerald’s sole season at the helm in 2024.
An acromioclavicular shoulder injury, a broken cheek bone, various muscular injuries not to mention osteitis pubis were part of the many blows that kept Brendy out of action.
Last year, he did appear as a substitute for the final twenty minutes of Clare’s 2-17 2-14 loss to Louth in what turned out to be Peter Keane’s last game in charge but was surprisingly omitted from the matchday twenty six for league ties earlier that season when available for selection.
A starting member of the Clare team for all five league games to date, Brendy is relishing the feeling of having a county manager believe in him again. He told The Clare Echo, “Paul has come in this year and has freshened things up, he has called in a world of players throughout the county, it has been excellent, he has good belief in me, for sure it’s good to be playing because that is what you want to be doing, I’m enjoying it”.
Three wins in succession have moved Clare to joint second of Division 3 with two more rounds to go. Clare have a lot more to give, Brendy outlined. “We got off to a bad start and lost our first two games so it is a bit of a relief now to have six points on the board. There is loads more in us still, we’ve two more games to go and we’ll put our best foot forward for those and see what happens”.
Saturday’s nine point win over Limerick saw Clare make right decisions on the ball than they have done so far in 2026, Brendy felt. “It is hard to pinpoint it. We were well up for it and we knew the challenge that was going to be there. We put our best foot forward, we got a lot of possession in that game, probably a lot more than other games and we were good on the ball too, it paid off in the end”.
Coinciding with Clare’s run of three victories on the bounce has been the move of the Ennistymon clubman to the half-back line, a position he had not been noted for but is more than comfortable in. “I probably prefer it,” he said of the new role. “A lot of people say we don’t have many forwards in Ennistymon so I’ve grown up playing there a bit. I’m enjoying being in the backs, I don’t mind it at all,” Rouine added.
One of the moments of the league so far was ‘Brendy’s Big Hit’ against Fermanagh, a powerful turnover which seemed to ignite all of the Clare supporters in Brewster Park a fortnight ago. “I just timed that well and I was lucky it felt to me but there’s lads putting in big contacts all over so it is good. It’s good to get the win and to move on to the next game,” he recounted.
That six point win over Fermanagh is rightly viewed as a turning point according to Rouine. “I don’t want to say it was relief because we should be aiming for higher, it was definitely a relief when we got points on the board because once you get them they come a small bit easier then and you can develop more confidence. It was a turning point but it all depends on the day. Division 3 is so tight, anyone can beat anyone”.
