*Clare minor manager Ger O’Connell. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE’s minor hurlers showed bravery, character and class to qualify for the county’s second All-Ireland final in three years.
By Enda Treacy
Manager Ger O’Connell was full of pride after watching his charges deliver a powerful display beating Cork 0-27 1-22 in Sunday’s semi-final at FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, O’Connell said his side were “fully deserving winners. There’s no luck about this. No, we were good. we made loads of mistakes, we did and we had to be brave, you know. We had to be willing to make mistakes to break through them”.
Lessons were learned from their seven point defeat to Cork in the Munster championship, he said. “Like everybody knows about their half-backline and, you know, what happened in Tulla, it’s been run around, the players would have heard about it. Their half-backline got on ball first half but we still said, right, the boys had come on a tonne and we knew the heart is there. We just wanted to stay in there, stay in the game”.
Composure was a big factor in their victory, the Clonlara clubman believed. “I thought we were the better team and the cool thing was that the bravery we showed on the ball in the last five to ten minutes, when the chips were down and we had to win it free or we had to win a ball in the full backline and then carry it and play through the lines. Rodge and Murph didn’t really get as much as ball as it was as they hoped, but that was just the way the game panned out and they got the scores and they had to. The boys were really brave and I’m so proud of them. And just the work that’s been done, like, from when these guys are 14 years of age, you know, this is what it’s all about to get to this level, I’m really proud of them”.
An emphasis has been placed on trying to aid the maturity and growth of the minors, he admitted. “We’ve driven that into them, we really encourage mistakes, you know. And when you make mistakes, you’re planning to learn from them and things aren’t going to go well. We’d have a game and we’d say, pull it free against them. This is going to happen in a game. You’re not going to be happy, but we have got to respond and always you see every game we played, we responded when the team has scored. We usually go up and get a score. We had our ups and downs, but we knew once we got going in the year that we would improve and once we got our hands on them for another few weeks, we were getting there, you could see them getting better and better and yeah, it’s cool, isn’t it”.
Sacrifices are to the core for anyone involved in an inter-county set-up and their families. It was no different in the O’Connell household with the birthday celebrations of Ger’s daughter slightly over-shadowed by a focus on the game. “My own daughter’s birthday is today, I’ve met so many things, you make so many sacrifices in this game that nobody sees, you know, and like, it’s actually her birthday today, like, but it falls on Daddy’s Day, which means it’s me again, you know, like this means a lot to me”.
Since his minor days as Clare’s goalkeeper on the victorious 1997 All-Ireland winning side there is a jump in standard at the grade, he flagged. “The minors of 97 we still have our minor group, and we still throw messages in and out of it, but no, this conversation means a lot to me and just the standard as well is unreal. Cork are a good team, strong team, but jeez, our lads never backed down. They just kept going and kept their heads up and we’re brave and all those features”.
Waterford await in the All-Ireland decider and he said they are a side very similar to Clare. “They’re very similar to us, brilliant character. Like, they’ve shown it all year, they’ve gone down four points to us, they were six or seven down to Tipp, they were down again last night. They are very similar to us.
“It’s just class! We’re in an All-Ireland final. I’d have bitten the hand off you if I thought this could happen. I can’t believe it. The management team I have are brilliant. We’ve been with the sixteens for three years and there hasn’t been one angry word. We love each others company and you know when you put in so much time that you have to enjoy what you’re doing. I think the boys feed off that as well. We’ve all been in setups where things aren’t good and players know,” he concluded.
