*Dylan McMahon clears his lines. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
ON THEIR way to winning a third-ever Clare SHC title, Clonlara were backboned by a crop of five players who five years previously guided the club to their first-ever Minor A title.
Dylan McMahon was centre-back on both of those teams with Jathan McMahon captaining the senior side from midfield, Colm O’Meara and Aidan Moriarity were central pillars at wing-forward and midfield respectively with Logan Ryan corner back succeeding in not putting a foot wrong.
McMahon has been one of Clonlara’s start players all year. Crusheen’s efforts to bypass their opponents dominant half-back line where he was the spine flanked by Páraic O’Loughlin and David Fitzgerald, managed to play into his hands as on countless occasions he swept up the breaking ball from the duel between Fergus Kennedy and Ger Powell.
Reflecting on his own displays, Dylan commented, “I’m just happy to go out and play for Clonlara, we take it as a stepping stone every day and it was great to play. It’s mad to say that we’ve gone unbeaten all year, that still hasn’t registered in my head, we might stay up here in Cusack Park for a few years to take it in. It is great to be playing centre back for Clonlara, it is a huge achievement, I got to push John (Conlon) up to centre forward, John is getting old but he is getting younger with the way he is playing”.
Conlon is the man wearing the number six jersey for Clare and given his performances McMahon is surely deserving of a call-up to the county senior squad. “I don’t know! I’d be happy to,” he told The Clare Echo of such a prospect. “I think we’ve another four weeks to prepare, we’ll enjoy the next few days, I’d say we’ll only get two days to celebrate because Madden is crazy so I’d say we’ll be back in the gym on Tuesday”.
He added, “I’m lost for words so I am, this is crazy, we’ve never experienced anything like this, it is madness what is going on in Cusack Park at the moment”.
Having experienced the buzz of a county final as the centre back on the Minor A winning side of 2018 who defeated Clarecastle, Dylan admitted he didn’t envisage such success with the senior in a relatively short period of time. “I think there was four or five starting with a few more on the bench. Little did we think five years ago we’d be up here standing in Cusack Park again, it was five years ago yesterday (Saturday) because it came up on my memories, it is madness”.
Winning the Senior B last year was “a stepping stone” for Clonlara as they decided they wanted to get a taste of the bigger days. “We took the Senior B seriously, we used it as a stepping stone, last year we did three in a row and we said it wasn’t good enough and that we needed to be pushing on and try get to a quarter-final and see how it goes. This year we went back in November, we worked on our S&C, we worked on the small things like tackling, we were training three or four nights a week so I think that is what stood to us, going back very early and doing S&C because the likes of Crusheen are all physical teams”.
McMahon a past pupil of St Anne’s Community College in Killaloe, continued, “We all made a pact and said we’ll give it one rattle and see how it goes, the county boys were gone but it was great to back early and it stood to us as you can see today”.
