*Clare captain, Cillian Brennan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLARE’s footballers take “a huge sense of pride” in playing in Cusack Park and in winning all home games in the 2025 Allianz National Football League.
Wins over Leitrim, Fermanagh, Kildare and Offaly saw Peter Keane’s charges record a one hundred percent record in Zimmer Biomet Páirc Cíosóg, their away run is not as pretty with defeats to Antrim and Sligo along with a Portlaoise victory over Laois. The two defeats ultimately cost them promotion to Division 2.
Captain Cillian Brennan explained the importance of home games for the Clare side and the value they place in the support received. “That is something we have real pride in, performing here in Cusack Park, we look forward to having a big crowd in here again for Munster championship, we need to get bodies right because a couple of lads went off there and it has been a busy few weeks to play four weeks in a row so it is a case of getting bodies right and ready to go again for championship”.
Ever-present at full-back for the duration of the league, Cillian admitted that their final round win over Offaly brought a sense of deflation when the realisation hit they were unsuccessful in their bid to be promoted. “It will take a little bit of time to process it, you’re looking at the scoreboard and it doesn’t feel like a five point win, our objective was first of all to go out and win the game, we achieved that, after that we didn’t give ourselves much of a platform to chase that score but with a team of Offaly’s quality and considering how they have played during the league, we knew there was a huge challenge there, our first challenge was to win the game, in other games you might get a bit of a run. It is disappointing but we have a lot to build on going forward”.
Seven scoring opportunities in the first eleven minutes saw Clare bring great gusto to their final round with Offaly, knowing they needed to win by ten, ultimately efficiency let them down as in this period alone they only converted two of these chances. They were also rocked by the concession of Jack Bryant’s goal to zap some of their early energy.
Brennan said, “You can look at both ends, we would have been very disappointed with our conversion rate, we were creating a lot of chances, we were maybe forcing things a little bit, we had the intention to go score by score, try win the game first and then we’d be very disappointed with the manner of the goals we conceded as well”.
There was renewed energy from Clare at the beginning of the second half and the Clondegad man acknowledged that Antrim’s interval lead over Kildare was mentioned but it was not their primary focus. “They mentioned it at half time but the reminder and the message all week was we had to go out and win, it shows the start of the second half the chances we took and we converted and how quickly you can put together a few scores, we closed the five point gap very quickly, they broke the momentum well enough to have an injury and go down which I thought in other games they might have brought it out of the game, they were cute and knew what they were at, they worked the game well”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Cillian said Clare will have to use the disappointment of missing out on promotion as fuel for championship. “We were coming in today with the objective of trying to get promoted, obviously disappointed with that but we have to reset and get right for championship”.
