*Cathal O’Connor punches the ball away. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
AS THE LONGEST SERVING member of the Clare senior football panel, Cathal O’Connor is well versed to gauge the impact of their supporters and he’s anxious to give them something to shout for over the coming weeks.
Speaking to The Clare Echo following Clare’s three point win over Limerick to advance to the Munster senior football final, he revealed that the Banner Roar was stronger than it has been since he joined the panel in 2009.
“It was great, the roars were unreal and was something I haven’t heard in a long time, it was brilliant and it definitely helped”.
Indeed, Clare supporters significantly outnumbered their Limerick counterparts among the attendance of 3,636 at the TUS Gaelic Grounds.
Their presence was a factor in ensuring Clare didn’t panic when they fell behind for the first time with fifty eight minutes on the clock, O’Connor pointed out. “We never really panicked, we probably didn’t play to the full of our ability but we stuck to the process and never panicked, the roars we heard when we drew level and went ahead, it was a roar I haven’t experienced before with Clare, it was great so many people turned up”.
Nothing but a battle was expected when they were preparing for Limerick, Cathal said. “It was tough work but we expected that, there’s never much between us and Limerick, last year they beat us up in Ennis so we were fully aware it was going to be a tough game and thankfully we got over the line”.
Although he had been on in the panel in the years prior to Clare’s appearance in the 2012 Munster final, Cathal was not part of Micheál McDermott’s side which lost out in the decider to Cork on that occasion. “I happened to miss that! It was the only year I’ve missed since 2009, this is my first Munster final, we’ll get ready for the next two weeks and give a good account of ourselves, we could give Kerry a nice shock”.
Coupled with the place in the provincial decider is Clare’s qualification for the All-Ireland series, a “very important”. The Coolmeen man said, “We see ourselves as a top eight or twelve team at the very minimum. Colm said we want to better what we did last year, we’ve got to two quarter-finals and we’ve flopped in both of them to be completely honest, we have to try go that one better this year”.
