John Conlon chases after David Reidy. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
CLARE’S start to the Allianz National Hurling League was “fairly pathetic” but the side have moved into “championship mode,” the team’s centre back has said.
John Conlon has made the most championship appearances of any Clare hurler. He started the defeat to Wexford and made his second bow of the year as the county picked up their first win of 2025 when defeating Limerick 1-21 0-21 on Sunday.
Standards that have been set by the group were not met in their first three outings of the League where they suffered defeats to Kilkenny, Galway and Wexford, he said. “It is a league match but we came here today with an ambition to get back to where we were this time last year in terms of intensity, working hard as a group. The last few weeks weren’t good enough, we were pretty disappointed as a group but training in the last week has been fantastic, we have changed into championship mode which is a great thing”.
He continued, “The losses, we took them hard and we were disappointed with the last few weeks, as All-Ireland champions coming out it just wasn’t good enough, not tracking runners last week and letting our home support down it was fairly pathetic, there was a lot of home truths in the last week, we went back to the drawing board and working hard, sometimes you need something to get you going again”.
One of the big pluses of the Limerick win was the showing of Jack O’Neill, Seán Rynne and Cian Galvin as they put themselves in contention for bigger days on the horizon. Both O’Neill and Rynne had been dropped for the Wexford loss but made their return known in the Gaelic Grounds. “For the first match we only had three lads who had won the All-Ireland in July so it was a baptism of fire for a lot of lads to be thrown into games in Pearse Stadium but in fairness when we needed those guys today like Jack O’Neill, Seán Rynne and Cian Galvin who have been getting game time the last couple of weeks, they came up trumps and were flying it”.
According to the Clonlara man, Clare returned to what they have done well in Brian Lohan’s six year tenure which was a high work ethic and executing the basics. “There is a lot of lads coming back from long-term injuries with another batch of lads hoping to get back in over the next week or two, the panel is strong, we know we have a very good bunch and an honest bunch, the great thing with Brian Lohan since he has come in we’ve always been honest, last week wasn’t good enough because we let our management and our county down with the way we were playing, we were disappointed with that, today was about going back to the basics, working hard and trying to be as good as we can, the result didn’t matter it was more about getting to the pitch and intensity we know we can reach, it’s about working on it for the next few weeks towards championship”.
