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*Inagh/Kilnamona’s Fred Hegarty celebrates scoring a goal in the closing stages of the Clare SHC final. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
FRED HEGARTY brought the flair and magic, scoring 1-5 as Inagh/Kilnamona claimed a first-ever Clare SHC title.
With sixty two minutes on the clock, Fred struck the killer blow, scoring a second goal for Inagh/Kilnamona which led to an outpouring of emotion as only then could the club which has for so long threatened a breakthrough, finally realised that the dream was moments from becoming a reality.
Big players really came to the fore for the champions with Fred chief among them. “It was very special in fairness. It was a very tight game until fifty five or fifty seven minutes, our big players stepped up, Aidan got a savage point, Fitzy was unbelievable, Seán Rynne got a huge point from out near the sideline, big games need big players, they all stepped up which was a major plus for us,” he told The Clare Echo.
Of his final tally, 1-3 arrived in the second half as Eugene Cullinan’s men took the game by the scruff of the neck.“I had a nice day of it to be honest, the ball wasn’t really coming into me in the first fifteen minutes and then I drifted out the field, to be fair Darren Cullinan, Kevin Hehir and James Hegarty all found me with very nice passes, I was free for a lot of them so it was a special day for us”.
Members of the Hegarty family have always been influential in the history of Kilnamona hurling, Fred’s father Fergal won two All-Ireland SHC titles with Clare in 1995 and 1997 while in 1998 he captained Kilnamona to win the Senior B hurling title with his brother Michael and David part of the defence. They were all proud figures on the sod of Cusack Park on Sunday following the seven point win.
Joint manager of the 2005 Clare IHC winning Inagh side, Brendan Longe remarked to The Clare Echo in advance of the final, “Fred would sell four dummies, buy three of them himself and one still for sale on DoneDeal”.
Sidesteps were the main act in Fred’s bag of magic tricks with four different dummies delivered at different stages of Sunday’s final including one leading to his second score on twenty two minutes. He confirmed he had read Longe’s comments while acknowledging the side steps worked wonders on the big day, “They did, sometimes they work and when they work they are brilliant, when they don’t work you’re given out to but in fairness today was the day to go out and express ourselves, we did that in the second half, in the first half it was a tricky wind to play against, once we knew in the second half that we had the breeze we went out, expressed ourselves and played the hurling we had all year”.
According to the third-year TUS student, Inagh/Kilnamona gained an edge with the showing of their half-forward line with goalkeeper Éamonn Foudy also delivering yet again. “I thought our half-forward line were excellent, David Fitzgerald picked off five points, Aidan McCarthy got 1-2 from play, Keelan Guyler was excellent at setting it up and organising things, Éamonn Foudy was exceptional in goals for us, any sniff of a goal he saved it, he was brilliant for us”.
Already an All-Ireland and Munster winner with Clare’s U20 hurlers this year, 2026 continues to get better for Fred. “It is special, you dream of stuff like this, I don’t have much words for it but we still know there is more to come. We have the Munster club against the Cork champions in a couple of weeks, we’ll enjoy this thoroughly but we’ll look forward to playing them”.
