*Clare defender Alan Sweeney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
BETWEEN management, the backroom team and rules there’s a lot of newness regarding Clare football but wing-back Alan Sweeney is remaining a constant amidst the changes.
Doolin’s Sweeney has been part of the Clare senior football panel since 2017 and is among the more experienced players wearing saffron and blue, nailing down a position at wing back over the past two seasons under Mark Fitzgerald and now Peter Keane.
Keane’s pedigree had impressed Clare’s footballers before the Kerry man arrived, Alan admitted. “Peter is excellent and obviously all of us would’ve watched him. We know his pedigree and all the All-Ireland minors he went on to win with Kerry, he was there for a couple of years, managed Kerry against Dublin at that time, that great Dublin team that everyone talks about. He has brought new ideas brought obviously a new freshness, brought more lads in, training is excellent, people are really, really enjoying their football and thankfully that’s coming on the Sundays in Ennis so we couldn’t be any happier with how things are going there at the minute to be honest”.
High praise is also reserved for Fitzgerald and his predecessor Colm Collins. “I obviously played in 2017, I had Colm for eight years and some great days, some bad days, everything but no a top, top man. Brought Clare football from division four to a really competitive Division 2 team and the games that spring to mind are obviously the All-Ireland Quarter Final, that day in Croke Park against Roscommon. We had another league game there against Dublin in Croke Park, we probably should have got over them but we didn’t. Colm was a top lad, Mark Fitzgerald came in last year and like that I suppose with a new manager, that bit of freshness and I suppose just from Colm’s tenure, probably seven or eight leaders probably stepped away too, one or two more lads took off travelling and stuff which was totally fair, a lot of lads put an awful lot into it but Mark was excellent for the year” and noted he “stepped away for whatever reason”.
A busy exit door following Collins’ resignation did provoke some worry, the St Breckan’s clubman confessed. “We were a bit worried when the lads stepped away that time Colm stepped away that we would maybe peter away off to Division four again but it has been anything but that. It was always going to take a year or two to get lads in but if you talk to anyone about playing intercounty football and going to Corrigan park or Newry you have to throw these lads in to get a feel for it and that does take time but any lad that’s been asked to do that has stepped up thankfully. Now you could talk to anyone in there and I’m sure Peter is of the view that they’re fighting for the twenty-six, they’re fighting for the top twenty, they’re fighting to get on the time and any panel that has that is very, very healthy so I don’t see that changing for the next couple of months”.
Sweeney said he is “really enjoying” the new rules in gaelic football. “The new rules have been an absolute rollercoaster really between the new manager, the new backroom team, new rules, refs getting to know rules, players getting to know rules but all in all, really, really enjoyable. Everyone knows know primary possession is everything, you have to have the ball in the middle of the field and be winning kickouts, if you don’t you have to be winning breaking ball. Its mad to think that before you wake up you could be ten points down. On the other side of that then you can reel in those ten points very, very quickly too. From a spectator point of view, it’s definitely a way better watch. From a coaching point of view it’s probably much harder to coach because obviously its fresh and all these coaches are trying to get their hands on new things and what’s working”.
More one on one defending and a bigger strain on the body are some of the consequences he has observed. “The one negative of the new rules is that there is definitely more of a stress on the body, one hundred percent more of a stress and you’re doing one recovery day last year, this year we’re doing two days. That’s the price you have to pay so it’ll just take a bit of adapting to and players will be working on this and the numbers and do them all up and see. It’ll just take time for lads to get used to that and to settle but definitely it has put more of a load on players and you need to have big squads because lads have been breaking down here and there with injuries”.
Their first taste of trialing out the rules saw Clare narrowly miss out on promotion to Division 2 for the second year running. Overall he said the league was “definitely positive” for the county. “Our first feeling on the bus coming down from Antrim was that it will come back and bite us, unfortunately it did. The conditions that day were horrific and it just it was what is was. There was nothing between the two teams on the day, obviously look it I don’t need to tell anyone any day you go to Northern Ireland on a bus looking for two points, you won’t come down the road unless you earn it but in fairness to Peter and all the lads we didn’t dwell on it. We got back on the horse, back to training that week and we picked up three National league wins in a row at home, two of them against Fermanagh and Kildare, teams that would’ve come down from Division 2 the previous year”.
He continued, “Headed up to Sligo then, honestly look it Sligo were tipped for promotion before the thing started and maybe Coolrea/Strandhill going on such a good club run probably hampered them that way, I don’t know but by the time we landed into town, they seemed to have a lot of lads back and again on the day could’ve went either way probably the slow start really hurt us and were just pipped on the day lost by two points Dermot Coughlan had a kick that just grazed out the part and you have these things swings and roundabouts. The day we played Fermanagh in Ennis, their centre back had a kick and it went off the post and over the other side, Dermot Coughlan was on the other side so look it, it is what it is, obviously you can be chewing about how we didn’t go up on scoring difference, Antrim and Sligo beat us and we didn’t score as much as Kildare and Offaly so it is what it is”.
Under Keane, Clare have a one hundred percent record in Cusack Park, a venue which Alan and his teammates seem to thrive in. “We always feel in Ennis that there’s a chance, it doesn’t matter who comes, we absolutely love playing football in Ennis, if we could play every game there and buy the away games to come there we could, we absolutely love playing there”.
Sweeney continued, “It’s probably a thing that’s well documented outside of Clare now is that teams come to Ennis know that we love playing there and you think back all the games we played, my first year on the panel we had Mayo in 2017 in Ennis, unbelievable crowd on a great day there, just fell short, that Mayo team went on to challenge for an All-Ireland that year but we had another unbelievable day there with Cork, the day we finally turned them over and got to a Munster Final in 2022. Obviously, that occasion with Kerry last year was something a lot of us thought we’d probably never experience, the crowd in Cusack Park that day. That’s why we go training and that’s what we want for young Clare footballers. They’re in development squads now at twelve, fourteen, sixteen and they know it’s possible as a Clare footballer to have days like these and maybe in the near future we’re getting even closer to the top teams and some day we might turn them over”.
Fitness is a strength of the Clare side, he maintained. “There’s a lot of character within our group and I suppose one thing it probably does say about us too is that there’s a lot of lads who have a lot of fitness work done and we are a very, very fit group I would like to feel and every day we have played I feel we have finished every game strong. The fifteen that obviously started, the five men coming off the bench then bit early have gotten scores off the bench and to win games you have to have players who are able to get scores off the bench”.
Reaching a third Munster final in three seasons is the aim for Clare as they face Tipperary in Saturday’s semi-final. “The prize on offer that day for the two teams that are playing is Sam Maguire football for 2025 and every lad that goes back to training November, December, January wants to be playing the top teams come May, June. I suppose the most exciting thing about that day is that we’re playing in Cusack Park, any day we get to play in Cusack Park we get to showcase how good we can play football and the prize on offer then is another crack at a Munster final and Sam Maguire football”.
A greenkeeper at Lahinch Golf Club, Alan is more skilled at maintaining the greens that executing fine skills on them. “I’m bad. I don’t have time. I wish I had more time, you need time to learn golf. If you don’t play, you’re obviously terrible when you do play”.
Initially he arrived at the Golf Club intending to stay for a summer job, that was in 2017 and he’s now finished an apprenticeship in greenkeeping. “I went out for a summer job really and I never left. I went for a summer job when I was still in school and there’d be a lot of the lads down there, local and I never had the intention but it’s just we were down and the winter I was the down the Irish Open was coming so there was a lot of work on and I was kept on as a young lad and I’m there eight years now. I went off and did my apprenticeship for greenkeeping and just finished that there”.
“It works well with the football; it’s a healthy lifestyle like you’ve to be in bed early and you’re up probably half seven every morning. It is a great place to work. They’re mad looking for caddies back here. How would you go to training after doing the work and three hours of caddying? You wouldn’t be able to move around the field and lads would be asking you what’s going on like. It’s a good place to work”.
