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*Dylan McMahon. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
Having seen their reign explode into life with a much coveted return of the Canon Hamilton trophy for the first time in 15 years in 2023, it initially seemed the start of a bright new chapter for Clonlara.
Back-to-back quarter-final exits ever since though have halted any thoughts of a dynasty and approaching season number five at the helm, manager Donal Madden felt that he had to take the temperature of the group before embarking on another campaign.
“After four years in charge, you’d question whether the guys would have the hunger and the willingness to really go at it again and that ultimately they wouldn’t be sick of the management or need a fresh voice or thing like that. But we’ve been blown away by the effort of the guys since January in terms of their commitment, enthusiasm and energy and being straight up, the lads are really up for it this year,” he told The Clare Echo.
Backed by that ringing endorsement, the next task was to bolster their squad as while the stars aligned perfected for Clon in the 2023 campaign, a succession of injuries to key protagonists in the intervening period have severely hampered their progress at the business end of the championship.
“We feel that every day we’ve gone out in the last five years since we’ve been involved, we’ve performed and turned up and no-one could every throw that at us. But at the same time, you need a bit of luck and last year for the quarter-final against Ballyea, we were down quite a number of players. Micheál O’Loughlin, David Fitzgerald and John Conlon were huge losses while Ian Galvin broke his thumb after about ten or fifteen minutes and Kieran Galvin went off with a serious quad injury so without reaching for excuses, you simply can’t be losing five players of that quality in such a big game. And yet we were still extremely competitive and Ballyea only pulled away from us in the last three or four minutes.
“The previous year at the same stage against Sixmilebridge, Dylan McMahon broke his leg only ten or fifteen minutes into the game to add to quite a number of casualties so any club, particularly a small club like us, you’re going to need everybody on the pitch to be successful.
“Having said all that though, despite those setbacks and challenges, every day we went out, we were still really competitive and we turned up every day so that’s what we’d be most proud of.”
So how has the new recruitment policy fare so far? “It’s gone really, really well. We brought in nine of last year’s minors and we exposed them to the Clare Cup. They’re really good guys that have brought a real freshness and energy to the whole group so we’re really happy with the way the Clare Cup went. We just narrowly missed out on qualifying for the quarter-finals so all-in-all, outside of winning it outright, it was really successful campaign for us.
“Our policy really as a club is to try and bring in two or three new players to the senior panel every year. I mean the likes of John [Conlon], Colm [Galvin] and these guys aren’t going to last forever so we’ve got to as a club maintain our senior status and keep adding new talent to the panel each year for that sole purpose”.
In order to keep looking upwards and not over their shoulders, both Madden’s men and opponents St. Joseph’s Doora/Barefield will be longingly eyeing up an opening victory in Shannon on Saturday evening (6pm). “Your first goal every year is to try and ensure our senior status and that’s ultimately what we’re going after and if something else comes down the road after that, we’ll take that obviously.
“But were not looking any further than the first round and let’s be straight, Doora/Barefield’s underage is absolutely on fire and there are some really, really strong players coming through. They’ve huge representations every year on Clare minor and Under 20 panels and they’ve really good guys over them as well so we know exactly the strength of the challenge that’s coming and we have to be ready for that.
‘Winning is about momentum so that first round is vital as things can take off from there with the points safely on the board but on the flip side of that, if you lose that first round, then you know you’re in trouble then to be honest because every round after that is knock-out. So everyone knows that the first round is vital and all 16 teams will be gunning for a result but of course not all of them can get it. Let’s just hope that we’re one of them”.
Clonlara Factfile
Management: Donal Madden (Manager); Paul Browne, Niall Hogan, Conor Hynes (Coaches); Evan Condon (Goalkeeping Coach); Mike Stritch (Selectors); Adrian O’Brien, Niamh Power (S&C); Johnny McGuiness (Kit Man)
Captain: Colm Galvin
Key Player: Ian Galvin
One to Watch: Jamie O’Connell
Fresh Blood: Sam Barrett, Cian Begley, Luke Collins, Mark Hogan, Jamie McMahon, Ger Powell, Ben Power
Departure Gate: Paraic O’Loughlin (Emigrated)
Treatment Table: None
Titles Won: 3 (1919, 2008, 2023)
Last season’s run: Quarter-Finalists
Schedule:
Round 1 v St. Joseph’s Doora/Barefield at Wolfe Tones GAA, Shannon (Saturday, July 25th) 6pm
Round 2 v Ballyea at Páirc Micheál Uí hEithir, Cratloe (Sunday, August 9th) 1pm
Round 3 v Inagh-Kilnamona at Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chiosóg, Ennis (Saturday, August 22nd) 4.30pm,
Championship power ranking (1=weak/unlikely winners, 10=strong contenders): 8
