*Éire Óg’s Ikem Ugwueru. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CHAMPIONS Éire Óg put their title on the line but with the abundance of strength in depth in their ranks it is going to take an almighty effort from the chasing pack to stop them claiming the Jack Daly for the fourth time in five years.
The Clare Echo’s football championship coverage is brought to you in association with The Shannon Springs Hotel.
Éire Óg Fact File:
Management: Shane Daniels (manager), Seanie Buckley (coach), Alan Malone (selector), David Russell (selector), Victor O’Riordan (S&C), Mikie Carmody (athletic performance), Neil McCarthy (medical).
Captain: Aaron Fitzgerald.
Key player: Manus Doherty
One to watch: Darren Moroney
Fresh blood: Darren Moroney, Luca Cleary, Conor Perrill, Bernard Keating, Charlie O’Doherty.
Departures Gate: Darren O’Neill (transferred), Gavin Cooney (emigrated), Éinne O’Connor (travelling)
Treatment table: None
Titles Won: 21 (1890, 1897, 1899, 1904, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929 as Ennis Dalcassians, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1994 as Ennis Faughs, 2000, 2006, 2021, 2022, 2024
Last year’s run: County champions. Beaten in the Munster semi-final by Loughmore-Castleiney.
Schedule of games: Round 1 vs Cratloe on Friday July 18th in Cusack Park at 19:30
Round 2 vs St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield on Saturday August 2nd in Cusack Park at 19:00
Round 3 vs Kildysart on Saturday August 16th in Páirc Finne, Corofin at 18:00
Championship power ranking (1=weak/unlikely winners, 10=strong contenders): 10
Shane Daniels was between the posts for their success last season, he’s now manning the sideline as the side’s manager. He succeeded Paul Madden who stepped down after eight years in charge, the former hotelier not alone led Éire Óg to their championship breakthrough in 2021 but backed it up with success in 2022 and 2024 to ensure his name will remain among one of the leading contenders to become Clare manager whenever a vacancy may arise.
Daniels is a five-time Clare SFC winner, while he had been part of the management when continuing as goalkeeper, having the focus solely as manager is an adjustment. “It’s a lot different, as a player you can affect what happens the day of a game, as a manager you do the preparation in the lead up, you have your say at half time but that’s it. Overall it has been a fairly straight forward change, I’ve been involved in the management the last three years, I know what goes on in the background side of it, a lot of that wasn’t new to me, so overall I’m happy enough so far, the real test comes in championship”.
Arguably Shane is the envy of all club managers in Clare given the considerable pick at his disposal. For their recent Cusack Cup success, they got over the line without using first choice Clare defenders Ronan Lanigan and Manus Doherty while county men Mark McInerney, Gavin Murray and Oran Cahill were sprung from the bench. “You can see it is a great headache to have on team selection with all the county guys but it is also hard to integrate those guys back into the team having been away. We had lads play in the league and we were left with a choice for the Cusack Cup final of do we leave them out having got us to the final or mix and match. We’re also a dual club and we haven’t really been able to work with our full squad, we’re still mixing and matching. We had to give the county lads a break when they came back given the commitment and effort they’ve made with Clare”.
He continued, “We didn’t set out to win the Cusack Cup, we set out in every game to go and try win that game, we wanted to look at players in different positions and we’ve a couple of younger fellas coming up and it was important to give them game time, we’re really happy with how those younger fellas did and how the lads did when they were played out of position. We tried a few things out, we didn’t expect to get to the league final but it was a nice bonus”.
Team selection won’t be finalised until closer to game time with Lanigan and Doherty both back in the country following stints in Greece and the United States of America. Daniels said they don’t intend to call on Gavin Cooney and Éinne O’Connor, both of whom are abroad while Darren O’Neill their powerful midfielder has transferred after relocating with his family to Monaghan. “I wouldn’t think we’ll have Gavin or Éinne for the championship. Gavin came home last year but there was circumstances around that. At the moment it would be a no that we won’t have them but we never know what will happen, there are no intentions that we will have them”.
Deciding who takes over from Shane as the side’s goalkeeper has yet to be decided, he admitted. “At the moment we’re not too sure, we haven’t named a team yet, we’ve four really good goalkeepers, they don’t have very hard boots to fill to be honest, we’ve Cian Howard, Barry Ryan, Peadar O’Keeffe and Niall O’Donoghue, all of them are very capable”.
One thing he is certain of is that he wants to put his own stamp on the team with a high level of workrate. “I think you’ll see definite changes to our team from the last couple of years down to the new rules and style of play we want to play. The league is brilliant but you’ve to play senior championship to see how you’ll face up to the challenge that it brings”.
Daniels added, “The only mantra I bring is workrate, one thing that Éire Óg teams get accused of is their workrate and it is nothing they haven’t heard from different people. It is one thing I’d like my team to be known for and that is a high level of workrate”.
Seanie Buckley’s return as coach is another big plus for the Ennis side. The ex Limerick footballer was coach for their 2021 and 2022 wins before joining Mark Fitzgerald’s Clare management in 2024. “We all know how good a coach Seanie is, I’m really happy it worked out that he could come back. I’ve worked with Alan Malone before with ladies and underage teams in the club so I know what he brings to a set-up. David Russell has been managing soccer teams for the last couple of years so he has the preparation and knowledge to get things right, we’ve a good mix”.
Although three teams will emerge from their group, he insisted there would be no easy game when facing Cratloe, St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield and Kildysart. “Having three teams qualifying is better than two but they are all tough games when you break down the teams. Every game we’ve played against Doora/Barefield has been a good game, we haven’t played Kildysart in championship recent years so we’ll be going into the unknown there. Playing Cratloe is always a tough game. We’ll be trying to get the points on the board early to guarantee one of those three places but there’s no easy game which is the beauty of championship”.
His championship tenure as Éire Óg boss commences in Cusack Park on Friday where one of the game’s top managers Colm Collins patrols the other line. “I could talk loads about Colm, everyone knows what he has done for Clare football, if I could be a third as successful as Colm it would be a great career but for now we’re concentrating on trying to get the right result”.
Once again they carry the tag of firm favourites to lift the Jack Daly before a ball is kicked. The expectation doesn’t weigh on them, Shane said. “The group as a whole has the target on them, the one thing you don’t want to do is get complacent, we’ve enough inter-county players both past and present so hopefully that won’t happen. I don’t read too much into the favourites tag, we’re a new enough team, we’ve lost some players from last year, we’ve the new rules which changes the game and all those factors take its toll. It is the team that adapts best to the new rules which has the best chance of winning the championship”.
