*Ian O’Brien tries to hook Dylan McMahon. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLONLARA deservedly claimed their place in the Clare SHC quarter-finals for the third year running beating Crusheen by a single point to record a third their third championship win in a row.
Clonlara 0-22
Crusheen 1-18
Venue: Dr Daly Park, Tulla
The Clare Echo’s online coverage of the Clare SHC is brought to you in association with The Temple Gate Hotel.
Without question, Clonlara are among the leading contenders in the race to lift the Canon Hamilton, their talent and abundance of options all over the field make taking them down a sizeable ask of any opponent.
Bigger days ahead will require much bigger performances and their return of twenty three wides in this encounter will be the statistic jumping out at Donal Madden and his management. Such wastefulness and poor decision making will be punished by better opponents but the fear for everyone else in the county is if Clonlara at full-strength hit form they will reach a different level.
Ian Galvin once again demonstrated his red-hot form, plucking the sliotar from the sky, dancing left and right of his Crusheen counterparts, soloing the sliotar on his foot before picking up the hurley he dropped and slotting over points from tricky angles. He had five points from play and has been one of the top players of the Clare SHC to date.
As is generally the case for Crusheen supporters, apart from their quarter-final loss to Feakle last season, they left Tulla knowing their side gave what they could do to the cause. If they are honest, they’ll also point out that their second round defeat to a depleted Sixmilebridge was the costly hour when they let a golden chance slip to seal their place in the quarter-finals and knock out The Bridge. Instead they hit eleven first half wides and squandered an early lead to make this third round tie a must-win game.
They reduced the wide count from eleven to eight in the first half but it remained too high. Crusheen started the game well, they brought fire and energy to go 0-4 0-1 ahead by the sixth minute. Their lead was extended to four points by the tenth minute and back to three by the thirteenth.
However, Clonlara took control in the second quarter and they were the ones to retreat to the dressing room at half time with a four point advantage.
Getting Diarmuid Stritch on the ball is a clear directive for Clonlara, it works when his radar is in tune and he finished the hour with four points. Dylan McMahon was powering forward from wing back and splitting the posts with Darragh Dillon and Daniel Moloney along with Galvin on target to put them in the ascendancy.
Before Jim Hickey sounded the half-time whistle, he was busy blowing the whistle to try calm matters when tensions simmered over before the end of the opening half. The outcome of the tussle was yellow cards for Oisin O’Brien and Conor O’Donnell and a free to Ross Hayes while mentors from either side, Gearoid O’Donnell and Donal Madden also clashed but the placed ball from Hayes trickled wide and with it a chance for Crusheen to surge onto a bit of momentum before the break.
For the entire third quarter, Crusheen failed to score from play while Madden’s men tacked on five white flags, all from play in this spell, Hayes with a brace and Breffni Horner converted placed balls but it was indicative of Clonlara hoovering up possession from their own half-back line upwards.
When Crusheen managed to use the ball better they were able to create scores and they added three from play in a row to reduce the arrears to two points with fifty one minutes on the clock.
Galvin and substitute Jathan McMahon restored the gap back to five points before Fergus Kennedy pounced for a goal to provide for a somewhat nervy finish.
Substitute Bryan McLeish popped up with two much-needed scores, both from distance to steady Clonlara and ensure that the final two scores which fell to Conor O’Donnell and Horner would not turn the result in Crusheen’s favour.
A so-called ‘Clare Cup hoodoo’ has been squashed with Clonlara advancing to the knockout stages of the Clare SHC. They become the first side since Newmarket-on-Fergus in 2017 to have won the league title and progress to the knockout stages of the championship.
While the time of the year when the league final is now played has been changed, the trend of the winners not partaking in the business end of the championship is over, for this year at least. The intervening years have saw Newmarket-on-Fergus (2018), Kilmaley (2019), Feakle (2021), Kilmaley (2022), O’Callaghans Mills (2023) and Newmarket-on-Fergus (2024) fail to emerge beyond the group stages in the same year that they won the league.
This Clonlara team is different in a number of ways, not least because they have progressed to the quarter-finals minus the services of the inspirational John Conlon, a body-blow that would scupper the aspirations of most club teams in the country.
An improvement on their decision making in possession can bring them to another level, Colm Galvin made countless runs out wide for teammates to find him only for his colleagues to instead shoot for goal and miss when he was a better option. Similarly their retention rate on Alan Murnane’s puckouts will have to improve.
That said, they are one of the leading contenders for glory and rightly so. Ian Galvin excelled for the winners with Páraic O’Loughlin, Colm Galvin, Dylan McMahon and Oisin O’Brien also impressing.
Back to back defeats ends Crusheen’s involvement in this year’s championship and it’s their first time since 2022 not to be in the knockout stages. Too many of their bigger names were far from influential and their shooting efficiency though not as bad as round two still left a bit to be desired.
When it comes to spirit and fight they cannot be questioned and they produced a strong finish to almost cause an upset but the chance really slipped through their fingers two weeks ago. For them, the Mullins brothers Cilléin and Diarmuid, Ian O’Brien and Breffni Horner did best.
All photographs by Gerard O’Neill.
Scorers Clonlara: I Galvin (0-5), D McMahon (0-4), D Stritch (0-4), B McLeish (0-2), C O’Connell (0-1 1f), A Moriarty (0-1), C O’Meara (0-1), D Dillon (0-1), D Moloney (0-1), C Galvin (0-1), J McMahon (0-1).
Scorers Crusheen: B Horner (0-8 4f), F Kennedy (1-0), C Mullins (0-2), C O’Donnell (0-2), R Hayes (0-2 2f), J Fitzgibbon (0-1), C Dillon (0-1), O O’Donnell (0-1), L Ketelaar (0-1)
Clonlara:
1: Alan Murnane
2: Paul McNamara
3: Oisin O’Brien
4: Logan Ryan
7: Páraic O’Loughlin
6: Aidan Moriarty
5: Dylan McMahon
12: Colm Galvin
22: Colm O’Meara
11: Daniel Moloney
8: Diarmuid Stritch
17: Cathal Tots O’Connell
15: Michael Collins
14: Ian Galvin
13: Darragh Dillon
Subs:
9: Jathan McMahon for C Galvin (48)
28: Eoin Begley for Dillon (53)
21: Michael Clancy for Moloney (54)
23: Bryan McLeish for McMahon (56) (inj)
18: Kieran Galvin for Moriarty (60) (inj)
Crusheen:
1: Donal Tuohy
2: Ian O’Brien
19: Gavin O’Brien
3: Tadhg Dean
7: Cilléin Mullins
9: Ross Hayes
17: Diarmuid Mullins
6: Éanna McMahon
8: Oisin O’Donnell
12: Jamie Fitzgibbon
20: Cian Dillon
10: Conor O’Donnell
13: Luke Ketelaar
11: Fergus Kennedy
15: Breffni Horner
Subs:
18: Gerry O’Grady for McMahon (40)
21: James O’Sullivan for Ketelaar (62)
Referee: Jim Hickey (Cratloe)
