*Peter Keane. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE senior football manager, Peter Keane abruptly ended a post-match media interview following his side’s opening round loss to Down in the All-Ireland SFC Group 3 this Sunday.
Keane took umbrage to a question about whether Clare had gone backwards during his reign as manager. It followed Sunday’s seventeen point loss to Down in Cusack Park, their first defeat at home during his tenure.
Last year when the sides met, Down again emerged victorious by a margin of eleven points in Páirc Esler to claim promotion to Division 2 of the Allianz National Football League.
Following Sunday’s game, Keane’s interview with the assembled media, The Clare Echo and Clare FM lasted just sixty seconds. The former Kerry manager walked away after responding to a question on whether Clare’s results suggested a backward step during his tenure.
He later returned to use expletives when engaging with this reporter.
Below is the transcript of the brief interview.
Páraic McMahon, The Clare Echo (PMcM): “A very disappointing outcome, what are your thoughts?”
Peter Keane (PK): “Absolutely it is disappointing, we never got to the pitch of the game particularly early on, we couldn’t get to the pitch of it and then scores start going away from you and you’re scratching all the time then”.
PMcM: “That’s the second game in a row really where we’ve started poorly, is there anything you can put your finger on for this?”
PK: “The Kerry game start was very poor yeah, putting your finger on it, can we improve on it, we’ll go back Wednesday night and see what we can do”.
PMcM: “Talking about improvement, do you feel Clare are going backwards under your watch. We would have ran Down to eleven points last year, it is a seventeen point defeat today?”
PK: “Am I suppose Páraic that is maybe an angle you’ve been coming at for a while, just watching what you’ve been saying, I wouldn’t agree with you but that is the way you think about it”.
PMcM: “In what regard?”.
PK: “I’ll tell you one thing, I’d f******”. (walks away)
Following this Keane later returned and asked if the microphones were turned off before telling this writer “do you know what, you’re nothing but a c***”.
