*John Conlon. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
JOHN CONLON has made more championship appearances than any Clare hurlers and the two-time All-Ireland winner has confirmed he’ll be lining out with the county once more next year.
Clare’s All-Ireland win saw Conlon make his sixty sixth championship appearance as he collected his second All-Ireland medal, he has lined out in championship more than any Clare hurler.
Part of the forward unit when Clare won the 2013 title, Conlon was at the spine of the defence orchestrating matters as they once again got the edge of Cork in the All-Ireland decider. “We were waiting eleven years, it was just magic to get over on the right side of a final, there’s been a lot of heartache over the last few years since Brian took over and so many near losses and as Tony said to knock down the door and come out the right side was just electric”.
Nine months on from winning a second Clare SHC medal with his native Clonlara, it has been a glorious period of success on the field for the primary school teacher in St Aidan’s NS. “On the other side of my career when I was starting I won a nice bit, I had a couple of fallow years, it was great to finish it out and win a few titles coming down the home stretch, I’m not finished yet and I’ll be back next year”.
Further assurances were offered by the two-time All Star in his conversation with Brian Lohan after the match. “Brian said to me after it, ‘thanks for coming back’, I said ‘I’m coming nowhere’.
On their way to victory, Lohan and his management had to use twenty three players during the course of the final which went all the way to extra time. Game time in the Allianz National Hurling League proved critical in helping the development of their entire panel, John maintained.
“We’ve built resilience over the last number of years, any team that Brian Lohan is over goes out and gives it everything, it was just a testament to the panel, everyone that hasn’t been getting game time over the last few weeks of championship but getting loads of game time in the league really shone through, Cian Galvin was outstanding, Darragh Lohan came in full back and was outstanding, it was the back unit we wanted to look after and they were savage, lads came in and did their job up front, Ian got a point and Shane Meehan got a fantastic point near the end, that is what we need and that’s we wanted a panel in Clare, in fairness we built that over the league and again for the championship which is great,” he said.
Conlon continued, “We needed it and Cork needed it, we’re just delighted to come out the right side, it was an electric moment and it could have gone any way at the end but we were digging in and we weren’t coming away without a win”.
