HEADING into his eleventh season as a member of the Care senior football squad Eoin Cleary will be familiar with the routine.
Putting in the hard work in early season training and getting points on the board in the early league games are key to a good season, according to the Miltown St Josephs clubman.
Having taken time out to travel in 2024, the key forward missed last year’s league and championship campaigns with the Banner county.
His availability this year is a massive boost to the team’s hopes of doing well. After a decade with the squad its natural to assume that nothing will be new to Eoin in relation to training and games. Heretofore Eoin has only trained and played senior inter county football under the management of Colm Collins. After ten great years Cratloe clubman Collins stepped down as Clare boss at the end of the 2023 season. Kerry’s Mark Fitzgerald was in charge last year when Eoin wasn’t available.
Kerry man Peter Keane was appointed Clare manager back in November. “He is very honest in his approach and it’s very exciting to see a
different approach.
“He has plenty of experience of the biggest of days. He has a lot to offer and everyone is excited to learn from him. Everyone feels they are starting a new year with a clean slate”, Eoin told The Clare Echo.
Ahead of Clare’s opening game in the 2025 Allianz league, Eoin believes, “the league is the best competition, every team is so evenly matched and the majority of games are so close.
“It is probably played at the wrong time of the year. You need to be ready for every game. You have seven games in ten or eleven weeks
and this is very exciting as a player. You are coming up against teams whose styles you know. Our approach will be game by game”, he said.
Travelling to Belfast to take on Antrim on Sunday is “a tough start. We are well accustomed to Andy McEntee teams over the years. We have seen that with Meath. His teams are always well prepared, very physical and they will present a tough challenge.
We have a few players back from last year but it is generally a new team. Those who came in last year will have
grained great experience”, according to the Garda There will be additional focus on this season’s league as the new rules will be in play.
“In that regard we are all starting on the same footing”.
The FRC have the power to make tweaks if they feel they are necessary. There will be plenty of mistakes by players, managements and referees but the game needed some sort of change”, according to one of football’s key forwards.
Continuing he said “injuries will come into it. It’s so intense, there will be plenty of knocks, that’s why building a squad is so important. So many young players got game time last year”. Concluding Eoin said “we can’t really look past the next couple of weeks. The football league is more important that the hurling competition as where a team finishes will influence where they will be in the championship. Every game is so important and so competitive and you have to have a full deck every day”.
