*Niall O’Farrell and John Conneally. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLARE will use the month-long break before the Allianz National Hurling League final “to get a bit of work done” with manager Brian Lohan stressing the importance of getting back to the top tier while also acknowledging how life in Division 1B allowed them to use more of their panel.
Six wins from six saw Clare successfully navigate their way through the group phase of Division 1B with a one hundred percent winning record and equally as important unscathed in terms of serious injuries.
For the majority of their league ties, Clare have been without up to a dozen members of the panel but manager Lohan confirmed none of their hurlers are at risk of missing out on the first round of the Munster championship next month.
Speaking following Clare’s 0-26 1-20 win over Wexford, Lohan said “it was massive” for the county to bounce back from last year’s league relegation by sealing a return to Division 1A. “It was important that it was done straight away. That we’re not hanging around there [in 1B] and letting standards drop. Our players have been very professional in how they’ve dealt with it. Had to go to Antrim, had to go to Kildare, had to go to Carlow. You’d be expecting us to win those matches but at the same time, you have to go and do it. Our aim was to win all the matches and that’s what we’ve done and we’ll move on now”.
He added, “The aim was to get back up out of Division 1B as quick as possible and that’s how it turned out. We did our business fairly well and the players have been very professional and very serious in their approach in all six matches so we’re delighted to come through unscathed today after eventually getting the job done. It’s job done, a reasonable performance in the first and second half, we responded well to the concession of the goal in the second period when they looked like they were getting on top”.
Mark Sheedy became the thirty fifth hurler used by Lohan and his management in this year’s League when he lined out between the posts. Meaningful game time has been given to panellists and the 2024 All-Ireland winning manager admitted this would not be done had they remained in Division 1A. “You get that opportunity when you’re in Division 1B. It’s a different standard obviously to 1A. You wouldn’t be able to use that amount of players in 1A – you just wouldn’t be competitive.
“From that perspective, we used it fairly well and got as much as we can out of it. We’ll look forward to the league final and get our preparations right for the Munster championship. Ronan Kilroy got his first start there, he’s one of the Under-20s. Mark Sheedy is one of the Under-20s. Really positive from their perspective. They all want to play. It’s great to give them a home game against good opposition and great to win,” the Shannon native added.
Along with getting minutes under their belt, the likes of Sheedy, Kilroy, Diarmuid Stritch, Jack O’Neill, Seán Rynne, Niall O’Farrell and Senan Dunford have done their harms of featuring on the bigger days no harm. “All these lads their ambition is to play, they want to train hard but they want to get out on the field and be playing in the Munster league, the National league and the big thing is championship, they want to win matches for their county, we’ve good competition there and we’re looking forward to the next couple of weeks in training”.
Training will be important for Clare until the final in four weeks with Waterford to come to Ennis in six weeks time for the first round of the championship. “It’s an opportunity to get a bit of work done. To get the fitness levels up. We want to get more guys back available. We’ve struggled a little bit with injuries, as we did last year. But not as serious as what we were dealing with last year. We’ll hope to be getting fellas back fit and back available for selection.”
“We’re carrying a couple of niggles at the moment, a lot of guys just weren’t fit to play so it’s a chance for other people who are delighted to get the opportunity and they did well,” he said.
On the seriousness of the injuries, Brian commented, “Just niggles but you just have to be careful of them, when you have three games in a row as we’ve had for the last three weeks you will get niggles especially when conditions are tough, the conditions in Cusack Park are perfect but they weren’t in other places”.
