*Banner manager, Shane Mernagh. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
BRINGING and welcoming outsiders has been one of Banner GAA’s strengths as the club strives to complete a historic double.
Success often comes in doubles for the Banner at adult level. The club marked forty years in 2017 when winning two Junior titles, another Junior double was achieved in 2020 with the hurlers winning the Junior B championship and the footballers crowned Junior A champions but the final itself was not played until July 2021.
Founded in 1977, the club took a giant leap forward in 2012 when all underage structures in the town of Ennis were changed and the juvenile urban board was disbanded.
That was before the arrival of Shane Mernagh but he has played his part in guiding the club to a first-ever Clare IFC final where they take on Wolfe Tones.
Due to the relatively young age of the club, next year it celebrates the big fifty, it has tended to be outsiders that have relocated to Ennis that have been central to its growth. Carlow native Mernagh is one of those along with Galway native Tom Meehan as selector while key figures in the hurling club include Corofin native Liam O’Reilly with ex Clare hurler Cian Dillon of Crusheen in his second season as coach of their flagship hurling side who compete in the Clare IHC final next weekend.
Mernagh acknowledged the benefit of the outside influence for the club when speaking to The Clare Echo. “I’m one of them and there is lots of them. They don’t look down on people coming from outside whereas some clubs do, that is to the Banner’s advantage, extra eyes are always good, they have a system, people come in and now player wise you can it a lot of them are home-grown Banner, this is the crop of the development of the work done at underage, the lads I’ve worked with are staunch born and bred Banner men, that is a good thing and everyone is welcome to help out in the club”.
Saturday’s decider will be the biggest final the club has competed in. “It will be a learning curve for the whole club and to try not get overwhelmed by the situation, enjoy the situation and the ride up to it, the match is there to be won so we have to go and win it. It is great for the club getting there, the progression of the club is brilliant and I’ve seen it over the five years I’ve been here, a lot of work goes in behind the scenes to get to this point, it is unnoticed work that just doesn’t happen whether it is the development of players through the ranks so there’s a bit of gratitude from us as a management to everyone, even getting to the final is a thank you to everyone in the club but there is a job to be done and we don’t forget that. It is a final, finals are there to be won and to be lost, it is a fifty fifty game”.
Living in Clare for nine years, Shane admitted, “I moved down for a lady obviously, she’s Ennis town based, we’re out living in Roslevan at the minute”. That lady is Orla Moloney who is actively involved in Clare soccer circles, particularly with Hermitage FC. “shE played soccer underage and does a lot of coaching with Hermitage, she works in Kilrush Youth Club so is involved in it through her work to get kids together, she wouldn’t be too involved in sport but is actually involved in the Banner unknown to people by doing things for me on the computer, she loves sport, a big Celtic fan, she runs the Celtic supporters club in town”.
In 2013, he made his championship debut for Carlow’s senior footballers at full-back against Westmeath. A year later, he picked up a black card when facing off with the Colm Collins Clare footballers in the National League. With his club, Kildavin/Clonegal, he lined out in the 2006 Carlow SFC final when they lost to Palatine 1-9 0-11. He recalled, “I got to one senior final, we got to six or seven semi-finals, never getting over the line, always competing to a degree, we won a league at one stage but never won anything, always the unfortunate ones, it wasn’t for lack of trying, maybe we just didn’t have the firepower up front. We were senior when I was playing but have moved down to intermediate, a small country club, I was full back or centre back, whatever suited on the day. The last two years I was playing we were in intermediate, we were senior for fifteen or sixteen years so it was a big drop for the club. I didn’t kick a football since I left Carlow, the knees don’t hold up anymore”.
Similar to Meehan when he relocated from Galway to Ennis, Mernagh took a break from the GAA when he landed in Clare. “I knew people like Kevin Hennelly involved in the juniors, he asked me to help out and I said I would, I took a break from football when I moved here, I had played all my life in Carlow, did a years county and played with my club a good bit, I took a break from football when I came up here and injuries had got the better of me at that stage. I had the break for three or four years, then I wanted to get back a little bit involved but it is hard to make the jump when you don’t know too many people”.
His involvement with the Banner now spans five years, last season he was added to the intermediate management as a selector. “I was drafted halfway during the year as a helping hand with Tom as manager and John as coach, it was like a stepping stone and to give another pair of eyes and ears for a game, before that I was trainer for the Juniors so there was a link between players. This year I moved up which I was delighted to do and delighted to help the club in any way I could, that was my main focus to see what I could help the guys with, it wasn’t a big overhaul because Tom and John were still there, it was continuity and that is a good method that a lot of clubs should take heed, fresh eyes on something which is going well and everything has worked well, John is a big part of what we do and has brought a no-nonsense mentality whereas Tom is the wise head of the Banner club in general and watched a lot of these players grow up, we have Tomás Meenaghan another selector who is there five or six years and brought this crop up through the ranks so we have good continuity”.
Consistency has been evident all season from the Banner by winning promotion to the Garry Cup and going unbeaten in the championship. “It was a focal point of our talks was not to consistently win but to consistently perform and consistently work hard all over the field, that was a thing that we set as a target, it worked out great because we went on a run of winning the league which was brought through to the championship. It is hard to be consistent in any level of sport, it is hard to consistently win so it is about consistently performing well, that is what gets you the wins”.
Quality forwards like Shane Meehan, Thomas Meenaghan, Ronan Kilroy and Seán McMahon have delivered eye-catching displays but there is balance to their side, he maintained. “That is always the way, the backs and midfielders don’t get the headlines. There’s tremendous balance between our team, we have loads of forwards with great ability but our backs have great ability in their own right, when there’s a ball to be won they will win it, midfield are competing and it doesn’t matter who they are playing, once they are being competitive at backs and midfield then it gives our good forwards a chance to get good ball and compete themselves, the team is well balanced which we are happy with. You always look to see do you have a balanced team when you set out at the start of the year”.
A plumber, Shane is well aware of the threat that Wolfe Tones will pose. “I have saw two of their games live, two of their group games, I caught highlights from other games but it’s odd I have actually seen more of Wolfe Tones than other teams. We like to know what the other team are about, what they bring but as a team we do adhere to focusing on ourselves, it has worked well from now, we’re always wary of the oppositions threats and every team in the intermediate championship have different threats but we do still have to focus on what we do, our workrate, the way we plan to play the match is our sole focus while taking into account the opposition we play. Wolfe Tones have been like a slow burner, they have slowly gone through the championship unknown to people but they are known because they have the pedigree, they have played senior, they were in this position two years ago, they know what it takes to get there which shows by their performance, they are climbing at the right time which is down to their experience and being a good football team”.
Nerves came to the fore in Banner’s struggle to get over the line against Kilrush Shamrocks in the semi-final but so too did their belief, Shane flagged. “For any game like that you would be nervous, I thought coming into the second half that we hadn’t done ourselves justice, we had a lot of ball but didn’t make use of it if we’re critical of ourselves. Kilrush did very well, they were very efficient on counter attacks in the first half, you’d always be wishing for some luck, I had confidence in the team because our fitness is very good so we can go to the end and we don’t doubt that, you’d always hope that you get the run at the right time and we did, getting that run happens by our own doing, Kilrush might have got tired but we forced the issue, we got over the line and scored them points when they needed to be scored even though our shooting was lacking in the first half, we got the job done which is a credit to the lads because they worked and never gave in”.
Though there are some old-heads in defence, the young age-profile of the Ennis club has been overlooked, he felt. “There can be an element of youth too because we are a young team even though we have older people, often people can forget that some of our lads are very young, still U21 and it takes learning, semi-finals and finals are big games, there was an element of nerves with some of our kicking but you learn from anything and hopefully that is the nerves out of the way for the final, nerves sometimes are a good thing when you’re playing a match, you can use the nerves to give yourself a platform to do better, it doesn’t always have to be a negative”.
