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*Fergal Lynch. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
FORMER Clare hurler Fergal Lynch has ruled out a coaching role with the Westmeath senior hurlers.
2013 All-Ireland winner Lynch had been reported to be on board as the new forwards coach with the Westmeath senior hurlers who are to be managed by Seoirse Bulfin but the primary school principal has confirmed to The Clare Echo his focus will be solely on an involvement with his native Clooney/Quin next season.
Fergal is currently manager of the club’s senior hurlers who defeated O’Callaghans Mills in the relegation semi-final while he is also involved with their minor hurlers who are preparing for a county final appearance against St Joseph’s Doora/Barefield after overcoming Sixmilebridge 1-20 0-8 in Sunday’s semi-final.
Forty one year old Lynch was coach of the Galway U20 hurlers in 2022 and 2023 with Brian Hanley who was part of the Clooney/Quin senior management this season. Prior to this, Fergal was coach of the Castlegar senior hurlers and he managed the Clare minor hurlers in 2019 when they reached the Munster final and All-Ireland quarter-final.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Fergal said, “I’m focused solely on the club for the next couple of seasons. I am not interested with any roles other than that for now”. He added, “I am united to staying with Clooney/Quin and I’m still very committed to the club”.
On Clooney/Quin’s 3-18 1-18 relegation semi-final win over The Mills, he said, “Relief is the first thing. It’s a place we didn’t really want to be and we just had to deal with it. We worked really hard over the course of the last two weeks since the Clonlara game. Thankfully we’re out the right side of it now and we can focus a little bit over the winter to getting our heads right and ourselves right for next year.
“There’s a hare’s breath between our performances against Éire Óg and Clonlara. If we won the first game, anything could have happened for these young lads. We’ve been absolutely dogged with injuries. Peter Duggan is due an operation on his ankle. John Conneelly and Jack O’Neill are only just back. Someone must have killed a black cat in Clooney or Quin because we’ve had no luck whatsoever,” he said.
Lynch admitted that they arguably focused too much on their opponents when it came to the group stages. “We’ve been playing against high calibre teams and we’ve probably been focused too much on them and not our own strengths and abilities. Look at Callum Hassett, back from the Clare U20s where he couldn’t play because he was injured. He scored six points and had an unbelievable work rate through the game. You have to be happy for the lads who have come back from injury and played well. They played with a little bit of freedom and we wanted to play with our style today and thankfully it’s a win.
“There was comments made to me before the whole thing that they’ll all be targeting Clooney/Quin. To be honest, I wouldn’t really say that. We’ve got a really good tradition in the club and we’ve got really good players. We’re in a minor semi-final and we’ve good players coming through too. We have to back it up too by getting performances and wins. We didn’t do that in the first three games and we put ourselves in this position. Look it, we’ve learned a lot from this year and it’s the sign of a crazy person if they do the same thing all over again and expect a different result. So we’ll go back to the drawing board and create a new plan and hopefully it will be a plan that will put us into the knockout stages for the senior championship next year,” he added.
Seoirse was formerly part of the Clare management during Davy Fitzgerald’s five year tenure as senior hurling manager was ratified as the Westmeath manager in July. The Bruff man was in charge of Meath when they won the Christy Ring Cup in 2023 but left following this year’s National League campaign. He is currently over Charleville and has previously been involved with Cuala and Wexford. Kilmurry Ibrickane’s Mike Frawley remains involved as S&C coach with Westmeath.
