FEAKLE’s success in winning a seventh Clare SHC title and a first since 1988 has been hailed as “an unbelievable achievement”.
“For everyone in Feakle once you pick up a hurley the dream is to walk out on county final day and then to win the trophy and bring it back to a small parish like Feakle”
That’s according to Ger Conway, manager of the 2024 Clare senior hurling championship winning team.
He was speaking to The Clare Echo shortly after seeing Feakle bridge a thirty six year wait for the Canon Hamilton trophy. “Since those lads came out of diapers this has been their dream. I am delighted for the players and delighted for the whole parish of Feakle. It’s a unbelievable achievement”.
According to the manager, “we said to the lads beforehand that on a dirty messy day when conditions weren’t great, the team that wants it most will be successful. We carried thirty six years of hunger into this game and that was evident today.
Commenting on the absence of regular full back Evan McMahon, the manager said “he has been a stalwart at full back for the last ten years. It’s very hard on him to see his friends and team mates but he is delighted and obviously he would have loved to have been part of this”.
Asked at what stage he was able to relax and say that the title was Feakle’s he replied “when he blew the final whistle. With every score late in a game you are hoping that you are there but games can change in seconds, a slip, a soft goal and a team gets momentum but it’s not until the fat lady sings and the final whistle is blown can you say for definite”.
Acknowledging that they will have “plenty to keep us busy over the coming weeks with a Munster club championship semi-final in Cork, the county under 21 championship and two lads up for All Stars on Friday night”, he said “ we will celebrate this over the coming week”.
Concluding he said, “this is for the parish. We have wonderful support throughout the parish and those hurlers out there know tht it’s the parish of Feakle which is on that jersey and that they only have the loan of it for a few years”.
