*Clarecastle’s Patrick Kelly. Photograph: Chris Copley
CLARECASTLE’s longest-serving adult hurler was rewarded for his patience and commitment when playing a part as the Magpies rejoined the top tier of Clare hurling.
With ten minutes remaining in Sunday’s Clare PIHC final, there was a huge cheer from the Clarecastle faithful among the 2,358 attendance in Cusack Park as Patrick Kelly entered the fray. He gave them further reason to cheer when celebrating in front of the stand after winning a free.
Three of the current management team were former teammates of Kelly’s during their senior days which demonstrate the level of service he has given to the club which up until last year included serving on the Executive as player representative.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, thirty eight year old Kelly remarked, “It feels great, we were struggling at senior level for a long time so when we went down we had to get ourselves in order. It has taken a couple of years because intermediate is not an easy competition to win, we lost our first round and I’d say Tulla are looking at today thinking what could have been, you have to be on it, we weren’t on it the first day but we improved day by day since, we have a great age profile and the young lads have really brought it forward”.
Patrick acknowledged that by “just a bit” he is helping to bring the age profile up. “Take me out and maybe Stephen (O’Halloran) too and we have a good young cohort, you can hear what it means there with the noise from the dressing room, they have tasted some success rather than fighting relegation every year which is not a healthy situation, we’re delighted to be back but senior is not easy either and we saw the Mills were by far and away the best intermediate team last year and unfortunately they found it that bit tough this year for whatever reason. Winning is great but on the long-term, we have to be ready for next year too”.
An assistant principal at Scoil Pól Kilfinane where he teaches maths and applied maths, Kelly admitted staying committed to the Magpies has been tough. “It has been difficult to stay going, personally I’ve had an awful amount of injuries and it is tough to keep going, especially when you have young lads coming and they are bypassing you on all the runs. I kept going because I knew something was coming, I wanted to have a small part in it so I’m delighted to have stayed around and tasted some bit of success. We’ll enjoy tonight, we’ll enjoy the week but there’s a Munster club there, every team at intermediate level are all the same, if we were good enough we’d be senior so we’ll enjoy the next few days, then we’ll get back at it again, we will have a go and see where we end up”.
Part of the All-Ireland winning Clare hurling panel of 2013 and a Christy Ring winner with Kerry in 2015, Patrick was thrilled to see some game-time in Sunday’s final. “I’m very appreciative of Dalo and Sparrow and the management to give me a few minutes, there was lads on the subs bench that were very disappointed not to come on today so I am very appreciative of what they gave me”.
