*Daire Culligan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
DAIRE CULLIGAN will lead the line for Clare’s U20 footballers as they enter the championship arena.
Lissycasey’s Daire enters his third year on the county U20 panel and captains the side from attack as they welcome Tipperary to Quilty this Saturday (14:00) in the first round of phase one of the Munster championship.
During his time with the Clare U20s, he has played under three managers, Michael Neylon, Maurice Walsh and the incumbent Dermot Coughlan. “It brings its advantages, there’s freshness every year and there’s always something to be improved on because it could get stale if you had the same management all the time but every year you are improving on something different and they are bringing fresh ideas so it is getting good coaching all the way along,” he said of the high turnover within Clare football.
Culligan has taken learnings from each set-up which he feels has made him a better footballer. “The first year with Michael Neylon I took an awful lot of learnings on the importance of working hard as a forward, growing up as a young forward sometimes you might think it is all about scoring but often if you weren’t having a great game then tackling and workrate can get you into the game. Last year under Maurice Walsh and Ger ‘Bobby’ and that management team, I learned a good bit about movement and working together as a forward unit”.
It is Daire’s second time lining out for a Coughlan managed Clare team, from their time with the minors. “Dermot is very good, he brings a bit of everything, a good mix of attacking and defensive play. Dermot set out his stall good and early in November, in our first meeting he said he would be playing lads who are playing well and we’ve had a couple of good challenge games, some mixed results. There was one particular game where we had a poor enough performance, the next day Dermot changed seven of the players and we went out and played a very good performance, he stuck to his word, everyone knows there is serious competition for places, if you don’t perform the chances are you will be out of the team the next day”.
They have turned a corner since that “poor” performance in a challenge match where they scored 1-4 against Laois. Culligan recalled, “The poor challenge game was against Laois and the better one was against Leitrim, we hit all our targets and played a lot better, a lot of it boils down to workrate, we were flat against Laois, if we can bring the workrate against Tipperary that will serve us well”.
Last season saw Clare win one game out of five, their first round loss to Waterford in Quilty is one that Culligan & Co are keen to learn from. “We want to hit the ground running, we put ourselves under a lot of pressure losing to Waterford, we had to go down to Thurles, we thought we had to beat Tipperary, fortunately results went our way and we had to beat Limerick in the last game by five and that is what we did, it put us under a lot of pressure whereas when you win your first game you’re going forward to two more games and the chances are you only have to win more one of them and you could even top the group. We’re under no illusions, our full focus is on Tipperary and we will look at what is coming after that”.
As one of the standout performers with Lissycasey’s senior side last season who reached the last four, Daire was unlucky not to be called into the Clare flagship panel. Senior manager, Paul Madden has the approach of letting U20s concentrate on their grade with Culligan tipped to be drafted in with the seniors should he replicate the form he showed with his club in the Jack Daly.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Daire acknowledged, “You’re always going to be in the shop window especially when you’ve an inside man over the team like when Colm Collins was there, it’s the same now with Paul Madden, they are always going to know the young lads in Clare and they will know where the talent is. He’ll be looking at anyone that has a good club campaign and anyone that has a good U20s campaign, it’s not anything I’m thinking about at the moment, it is all full focus on Tipperary this Saturday”.
Transitioning from defence to attack is one of the strengths of Clare’s U20 side, the nineteen year old felt. “When we click we’re very good at the counter attack, when we turn over a defence from deep it can often be two or three kicks and an early ball into the full forward line, we’ve a very athletic team so when the ball goes in early and we’ve runners flying off the shoulder we can look very dangerous”.
While there are some niggles within the camp, only Daire’s clubmate Conor Hill is definitely ruled out of action for this weekend. “Murt Crowley our physio has been a very busy man over the last few weeks, everyone hopefully will be clearing up. We lost Conor Hill on Saturday in a hurling match but everyone else is clearing up, any time you’re coming to championship the injuries nearly clear themselves up”.
A third year primary teaching student at Mary Immaculate College, Daire was part of the Limerick college’s team that came up just short to Trinity College in the Trench Cup final. “We still have a small bit of familiarity with Darren Keane a clubmate of mine and Evan Cahill here with the U20s as the three Clare boys involved, it is good to be mixing with guys from Galway, Kerry, Mayo and places like that, places with good county experience and pedigree, you’re testing yourself against good lads because in the Trench Cup final we played against Ciaran Lennon from Roscommon who has five or six years experience at inter-county, you’re testing yourself against the best so it has been a big help”.
On his decision to head down the teaching route, Daire explained, “Neither of my parents are teachers, I’ve two cousins that are secondary school teachers. Dad was always trying to push me into primary teaching, I never really warmed to the idea too much until sixth year when I got the idea in my head that I wanted to be a primary school teacher, I did a year working with the Cúl Camps and I enjoy working with young lads, I’ve no regrets, I’m happy out”.
