*Maurice Walsh. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CHAMPIONSHIP ACTION descends on Doonbeg this weekend with Maurice Walsh’s Clare U20 footballers determined to make their mark from the off when they welcome Waterford to West Clare.
Shanahan McNamara Memorial Park in Doonbeg is the setting for Clare’s first championship outing of 2025 in phase one round one of the Munster U20 campaign.
Appointed manager in December, Maurice is joined in his management team by ex Clare footballer Ciaran Russell Kildysart’s Ger ‘Bobby’ Kelly is the coach, manager of last year’s Kilrush Shamrocks intermediates Daniel Ryan, Declan Conway of Lissycasey and Shane McNeilis from Kildysart serve as selectors with the ticket completed by Mike Brennan, S&C coach Nathan McNicholas and physio Ruth Hassett.
Seán McAllister and Evan Cahill who are part of Peter Keane’s senior panel are expected to fill key roles for Clare. The side is captained by Seán McMahon, it is anticipated he will be joined in attack by Conor Fennell and Daire Culligan.
Corofin’s Colm Breen will be unavailable for the game as he is lining out at midfield for the Ennistymon Community School bidding to win the All-Ireland PPS C title in Tuam.
Michael Neylon had been returned as manager for a sixth season in September but resigned from the role at the beginning of November after the appointment of Keane as senior manager.
Walsh had been interested in succeeding Dermot Coughlan as Clare manager before the sudden vacancy emerged. “I had been watching to see if the minor job had come up, and it did come up, I had spoken to a few people about it but it was kind of going in the direction of Joe (Hayes) at the time and I said they were well keyed in and they were getting a few senior players involved like Cathal O’Connor so I was happy for them to work away with it. I had no real desire for a position and then Michael (Neylon) stepped back and the position opened up and because I had spoken to a couple of lads in relation to forming a management team so we said we’d approach the County Board and put our names forward to see how we’d get on”.
He felt they made “a good proposal” to the County Board after expressions of interest were sought for the role of U20 manager. Maurice acknowledged that they were much later starting than they would ordinarily like and admitted they lost weeks in preparation. “Ger spoke with Michael Neylon and he said he’d assist us in anyway he could but we were in a bit of a dilemma because we had to get to know the players, you’re dealing with eighteen, nineteen and twenty year olds, it’s three years so potentially you would have a 100 players to look at, we brought in 80 players born in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and we broke it down, we brought it down to about 45 and then we reduced it to 35 after that so our first four weeks, we were trialling, getting a lot of lads to training and obviously when you have got sixty lads on the pitch at any given time it’s hard to train. Anyone we parted company with they were kind of happy enough, they were either a bit young or they just hadn’t the skill level that we were looking for at the moment, the lads have we in are quite happy to be in as well”.
Sourcing pitches as part of their preparations has been a challenge as they’ve battled snow and storms. “I thought one day my phone was going to blow up, we were we were so active in relation to trying to get things sorted and the storms didn’t help. It was the same for every county, if we were organising a challenge today it was called off in three days time and things like that, you know but it was the same for every county. Our, preparation has been good. We’d rather be a little bit further on ,if we had got them a little bit earlier with strength and conditioning and putting a bit of mileage in the legs early on when you’d have no ball, we missed a bit of that but we’re getting there, this campaign is over the next three weeks so they’ll still be gaining and I think they will finish strong”.
Pencilling of games in the opening round of the Cusack and Garry Cups forcing supporters to choose between attending their club and the Clare U20s has caused upset among football followers in the county. “It’s a small bit disappointing, you’d prefer to see if your clubman is playing that people are able to go to the game but the clash means some particular families and supporters can’t come to our game which is a bit disappointing. We might get it right for the Tipperary and Limerick game further on in the championship but we will take where we are, Doonbeg will always bring its own crowd,” Maurice said of the clash.
Indeed he knows too well of the clash given that he has been appointed manager of the Kildysart senior footballers who face Lissycasey at 16:30 while the U20 tie throws in at 14:00. “Myself and Ger ‘Bobby’ had been soldiering away in Doora/Barefield for a while, a position came available, Ger asked if I was interested in it, I said I would be for the summer,” he stated of his new role.
Senior panellists Seán McAllister and Evan Cahill have been focusing solely on U20 matters this week, the Clare U20 manager told The Clare Echo. “We were very fortunate with Peter Keane, he’s a good guy in senior management, he understands that lads should be playing at their own age, he’s very supportive of the two boys and he’s given us full access this week so he’s very good”.
He continued, “Seán has been part of this group, I had him when he was 15 and he had a very bad injury, when he was 15, he was out for a good eighteen months, even at that stage you knew he was going to play for Clare because he had that ability and drive in him, it is great to see him playing for Clare. Evan is the new kid on the block, he is very young, I wouldn’t have had him but he is very impressive, a really impressive guy. It is no issue for those lads when it comes to playing with people at their own age group”.
This year’s U20 side are familiar with Maurice as he managed them at U15 level. “They impressed me back then and they are still impressing me, they are a good bunch,” he recalled. “They’re that little bit older, right, you can treat them as adults. When you’re dealing with a minor team, especially when it’s 17, it used to be 18 and you you’d say you get away with a lot but at under 17, you’d be very conscious that, they’re developing as adults and they’re developing as footballers or sportsmen and it’s a little bit different at 20, they’re out in college, they have seen a little bit more of the world and, they have different interests, so you have to keep an eye on that”.
Not much has changed in terms of workload as he returned to inter-county management, the Éire Óg clubman noted. “Workload is much the same as at minor level. There’s a lot more contact with the players because they’re further afield, they are not all based in Clare, we’ve guys in Cork, Limerick and Dublin so there’s more communication skills needed in relation to things like that, in general it is the same volume of work, you train three nights a week, do your S&C session and have your challenges”.
To assist with adapting to the new rules, the U20s have been briefed by referees and ex Clare manager Colm Collins who was part of the football review committee. “We expected that to be a little bit difficult, but, you know with younger lads, I’d say it’s more difficult for management than it was for the team because the young lads are constantly evolving, if you tell them something they just they just take it in and they will be questioning us more than we will be questioning them. We’ve had we’ve had referees in, we’ve had Colin Collins in speaking to them in relation to the rules, I would say as a group they’ve taken to the new rules very well. Obviously sometimes you’ll have little mistakes and things like that, especially with the three and three but in general, they’re very effective”.
Getting to the pace of championship may take a game or two, Walsh cautioned. “We would expect it, and we’re delighted to have a home draw for the first game. Waterford won’t come to Clare not looking for a result, they’ll be coming looking for a win, obviously and they’re well coached we know that. Our lads are strong, they’re going back to Doonbeg which is a cornerstone of Clare football, there’ll be a good crowd there, a good Clare crowd. I think it will evolve, looking at the results from last year Clare did well in phase one and didn’t do well in phase two, I don’t know the reason for that but it possibly was that they had went up an extra grade and met the Corks and Kerrys, Tipperary were actually strong last year so phase two was a bit disappointing, it is something we are conscious of, we want to peak coming out of phase one, we have to peak on Saturday but we’d like to be peaking coming out of phase one”.
“We’d be hoping for the performance next Saturday out of the team, hopefully that will bring a win for us, we’re straight into Tipperary a week later and we’d see them as our arch rivals, we owe them one for last year and a lot of the lads are looking forward to that battle, Limerick is a bit of an unknown for us at the moment, any time we play Limerick they are always big at the middle, they have good six and a good eleven, the game is evolving around the middle eight now so they will be very strong but we should be strong in those positions too”.
