*Clare goalkeeper Stephen Ryan is congratulated following Sunday’s win. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
PICKING up a coveted first league win of 2026 can be a turning point in igniting Clare’s season, football manager Paul Madden is hoping.
Four weeks of tension for the county’s footballers was released with a superb Brendy Rouine hit late in Sunday’s game at Brewster Park. The timing of the shoulder was only matched by the power of Brendy’s hit which won Clare a turnover and led to their seventeenth point of the afternoon, converted by Shane Griffin, putting them five ahead and effectively securing their first win of the National Football League.
After losing to Down and Westmeath, Clare needed to leave Enniskillen with a win, they delivered in this aspect and it keeps them tied with Sligo in the relegation zone but had them leaving Fermanagh with a pep in their step.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, manager Madden was hopeful their first win of the league would propel them forward. “We needed the two points from the perspective of the table, we’re not out of the dark yet, we have to win more matches but again I’ll go back to it the pressure the lads put on themselves, we knew we were training really well and working really hard, we were doing all the right things but there was still so many parts of our play that were poor today if we call a spade a spade, our own kickout retention was the only stat at half time that wasn’t great and it won’t read great in the second half, that is something to work on but I think we did well on the other things”.
Though he may not admit it, there was a sense of relief on the face of the Ennis man following the final whistle. Following their poor showing versus Westmeath, it was important for his charges to bounce back and they duly did. “The only pressure I feel is the pressure I put on myself, for the lads we talk about belief, the need for them to start believing they are as good as any team they play, you can talk about and say it but you have to experience it so we needed to get a win, for the lads I’d say it is a huge release. I said to them during the week, if we could get one win I feel we can get better and better. We’ve tough games ahead, we’ve Laois on Sunday and then Limerick after that, we’re under no illusions”.
He added, “In the end it was a fantastic victory with the manner of the second half performance, it was real Jekyll and Hyde, we started really poorly and couldn’t get a kickout away, we couldn’t get any break but then something clicked. The one thing the lads have in abundance is physical strength and fitness, you could see that at the end, from the full-back line up we were bombing up the pitch, we were completely running them ragged, we needed that. In the context of where we are, we needed to get some breaks”.
“When you get a little bit nervous or you’re under a bit of pressure you don’t release the football you have in you. Pound for pound, fitness wise our lads are as fit as anyone but your legs don’t work as fast when things are going against you”.
Goals in either half from Aaron Griffin and Daniel Walsh “won the game”, he said of their 2-18 0-18 victory. “We needed to reduce our turnovers, we had twenty two weeks ago against Westmeath and only two in the first half, we had a few more in the second half but we halved our turnovers which in the modern game and Jack O’Connor was talking about it on Saturday night, turnovers are a killer, we were better on our turnovers today and I think we wanted it more than them in the end, it really boiled to the basics. We got a sucker punch with the injuries early in game, losing our midfielder and losing our captain again. Cillian Brennan was very unlucky not to start today, he came in and grafted hard, Connor Meaney did fantastic when he came in”.
Minus Darragh Bohannon and Cillian Rouine for the second half, Clare needed leaders and they certainly stood up in the final quarter. “If you want to talk about lion hearts then Alan Sweeney will give you everything until he is dead, Manus, Ronan Lanigan and Cillian Brennan got some great blocks in. Brendy’s hit was literally four weeks of tension released in that hit, we were on top at that stage but it made sure they knew they weren’t getting up the pitch easy”.
Not so pleasing was their third quarter when they allowed Fermanagh kick five points on the bounce, to fall two behind. “I never fully gave up hope. Two points is nothing in these games, if you fall behind by two points it is nothing so I never gave up hope, we needed some bit of a spark and we won a couple of turnovers, we started making better runs out of defence so we were creating overlaps and we got a great impact off the bench”.
Retaining their kickouts was an issue for Clare throughout the third round tie, Paul acknowledged. “They did a lot of work on our short kickout so we only got two short kickouts away and one of them was adjudged to have been touched on the ground by Ikem which I thought was harsh, we didn’t get short kickouts away, we said we shouldn’t force them if they were not working but we didn’t concede any goals, normally if you get a short kickout intercepted it a goal chance and we didn’t concede. We got on top of some of their kickouts for most of the game and we got some good scores from that”.
Cutting down basic errors will be a focus as they prepare to welcome Laois to Ennis this Sunday, he outlined. “What will give me more pride is if we can eventually cut out the errors and get better at certain things, retaining our own kickout is one of them. As a manager and management team, the one thing I can influence is the environment and you can create that, you hope the lads give you everything back in spades in terms of effort and honesty and have a great attitude, I can say to a man even though lads didn’t play that is what we have in the group but as we saw in the first two weeks it didn’t work for us on the pitch in terms of result but today it did, we’re not under any illusions we have a tonne of work to do and Laois had a huge win in round three, there’s no easy games in this division. We’ll be back training on Tuesday, we’ve some sore bodies, we’re assessing where they are but we trust the thirty nine members of the squad we have, if we draft in lads that weren’t on the bus today we’ll be happy”.
