Category: Sport

DURING the week Kevin Kennedy memorably likened himself to Giovanni Trappatoni when talking about players who declined an offer to throw their lot in with his county intermediate side.

But just as Trappatoni’s travails with the likes Anthony Stokes, James McCarthy and enfant terrible Stephen Ireland never got him down, so it was with Kevin Kennedy in his stewardship of what he called “the unglamorous team of Clare hurling”.

And just as some reward came to Trappatoni recently, so it did to Kennedy in this Munster semi-final as those who answered his call have brought the county to within 60 minutes of an historic first ever provincial title at intermediate level.

“The fellas that were playing today are the fellas I want for the final,” said Kennedy in the first flush of victory, hinting that there won’t be too many more invitations handed out to the stay-away bunch.

“I can tell you that much, because when we were playing challenge matches on wet evenings in Gort, Clareabbey and places like that, these are the players who wanted to come out to play for Clare as this level. We had one chance at this, one chance to get to a Munster final.”

That they did it in such decsisive fashion wasn’t beyond Kennedy’s wildest expectations, but he expected it to be closer against a Cork team that had beaten Tipperary in the semi-final by 2-16 to 2-12 in the quarter-final.

“I knew if we got our defence right for this game we’d have a great chance,” he reflected. “We had the defence right and things followed from there. We knew we had the forwards to get scores and they did that by putting up 2-19. That’s a good score, a very good score.

“We’re learning all the time. We learned today that the defence we picked was up to it. Patrick Kelly was absolutely outstanding at full-back – time and time again the came out of defence with the ball, especially in the second half and it lifted the team. He has a presence at full-back and that’s what we needed. He was brilliant.

“We concentrated on getting right for this game in the last three weeks, when the club championship com mitments were over. People say we should have done more – an analyst on Clare FM the other night said we should have 25 or 26 sessions done.

“It’s impossible to do that. There was no point doing anything until the first two rounds of the championship were over. We worked hard for three weeks and the result is there in that win.”

Now for the Munster final in July 13 next against Limerick.

“This is the unglamorous team of Clare hurling,” says Kennedy. “There’s no high profile, but winning a Munster final would be great. Clare needs to win something at adult level. When Clare won Munster and All-Ireland junior titles in 1993 we got things rolling. We need to get rolling again.

“With the team we have and the way we’ve got it right, I’m confident now.”

THE All-Ireland Broodmare Championship at the Clare Agricultural Show has been recognised as one of the premier showing classes in Ireland by being included in the new Horse Sport Ireland National Showing Championship Series, in association with the Irish Shows Association. Only ten Championships around Ireland have been included in the Series, which will see € 20,000 being injected into showing in 2011

The series will consist of ten championship finals taking place at ten of Ireland’s top rural shows, including three venues in County Clare – the others apart from Ennis are the Scariff and Kildysart Shows. There will be a total of 206 qualifying classes run around the country in the lead up to the finals.

Speaking at the launch, Horse Sport Ireland Chief Executive, Damian Mc Donald, said that as well as providing funding for the Series, Horse Sport Ireland were keen to increase the profile of the showing championships around the country.

“Qualifiers for these championships take place in every corner of Ireland at rural shows and are accessible to breeders. The shows are run on a voluntary basis with all the funding going directly to the exhibitors. Our vision is for these championships to become the Champions’ League of showing,” he said.

TOMMY Dunne knows all about Clare ambushes on the Ennis Road – he made his senior championship debut in the Munster quarter-final clash in 1994 when the clap of thunder that greeted Tommy Guilfoyle’s match-winning goals could be heard as far away as Slievenamon.

That’s why experience had taught the Toomevara man to expect a big Clare performance – he knew it wouldn’t be any other way and knew it would be a battle.

That was his gospel after this ballgame was over, thankful that the AllIreland champions were up for battled, because, if they weren’t….

“We prepared very well for the game. We were very conscious that people were completely writing Clare off and we were very much on our guard for that,” the 2001 All-Ireland winning captain admitted.

“I think had we underestimated Clare to any degree, we would have came second today, because I thought Clare really meant business out there today.”

This fact was hammered home with Clare’s blitzkrieg start that saw them race into a 1-3 to no score lead inside eight minutes.

“We were hoping to make a strong start. We knew Clare would be trying to do the same and it was they who got the better start.

“It took us a long time to get to grips with them. In fairness to Clare I thought they gave a very good account of themselves and they were unlucky not to get a couple of more goals.

“From our point of view we got a couple of goals, probably against the run of play. We were under severe pressure and those goals got us into the game and kept us in the game in the first half.

“Clare were well on top, but those goals made a huge difference. The first two goals cut the deficit and the third one put us ahead, even though we didn’t deserve it on the balance of play.

“They had a lot of quality and you could see that in their play. We were happy with our preparation, but obviously we weren’t happy with the way we performed on the back of that preparation, but that’s sport. It’s not a straight-line graph. I think our lads were well-tuned for the game the fact that we were eventually stood to them.

“It comes from experience. We’ve been around the block a few times and in fairness the lads dug out some great scores when we really needed them.

“In the second half we probably upped our game all over the field, even though we hit a few bad wides towards the end, but we got the scores to open up a six or seven point gap and that was the big difference,” added Dunne.

CLARE PEOPLE have been asked to send messages of support to the counties two athletes who are bidding for glory at this years Special Olympics World Summer Games in Greece.

Seventeen year old Ciara O’Loughlin, who comes from Ballyea just outside Inagh, will compete in athletics while Sixmilebridge’s Michael Neville is part of the Irish Soccer Team. The pair flew off yesterday as part of the 124 strong Irish team who will hope to bring glory to the Banner County over the next two weeks.

Ciara’s parents and four other family members all flew out to Athens yesterday to show their support to the Irish team. Speaking from Heathrow Airport yesterday, Ciara mother Collette urged Clare people to sent messages of support to the Irish athletes who will compete at the games.

“They will have a wall for all the athletes out at the games and as people send on messages these message will be left up for all the athletes to read. It would be great if people would leave messages for the Clare athletes and all the Irish athletes,” said Collette.

“Ciara is a member of the Shannon Flyers Club and she has worked very hard for this. She has been training four days a week down in Clare and once a month she has been going to Dublin to take part in training with the Irish team.

“Ciara goes to St Anne’s School in Ennis and everyone gave her a great send off there last week. She also got a great send off from the club who have done so much to help her qualify for the Olympics.”

Ciara, who just turned 17 last week, will compete in the 100 metre sprint and the shot putt while she may also compete in the 100 metre relay race.

Sixmilebridge man Michael was introduced to the Special Olympics through his involvement in a training centre in Limerick four years ago.

Michael has an impressive record in scoring goals, having scored 36 for his club. He competed in the 2010 Special Olympics Ireland Games in Limerick.

His involvement in Special Olympics has greatly improved Michael’s confidence. He now loves going out meeting new people and playing his favourite sport. Michael is a sports fanatic. He loves watching sport such as rugby and hurling and enjoys reading books about sport. His sporting hero is Robbie Keane.

Team Ireland will join 7,500 athletes from 185 nations at the Games which will be the biggest sporting event in the world this summer.

Messages of support for Michael and Ciara can be emailed to eteam@specialolympics.ie while people can also follow their progress live on www.specialolympics.ie.

THERE WAS obvious disappointment etched on Clare selector Liam Doyle’s face as he shuffled down the players tunnel at the final whistle. However, beneath the understandable resignation lay an immense pride in his players that they left everything on the field in a bid to topple the AllIreland champions.

“To lose is disappointing from our point of view but you just couldn’t fault the lads. We asked them before the game and we asked them again at half-time to work their socks off and run themselves into the ground and in fairness that is exactly what they did today.”

“You always dream of getting off to a great start and in fairness, Conor [McGrath] had a brilliant game today. He’s a natural forward and took his goal very well so the start was brilliant but I suppose for our lads, we couldn’t let Tipp dictate the game. We had to take the game to them so you couldn’t have asked for any more.

“On the balance of possession, we probably deserved to go in half-time in front but a bit of naivety and Tipp got a couple of soft goals suppose you’d call them. But that’s Tipp, give them a sniff of a chance and you will be punished. They have the experience of All-Ireland finals and they are ruthless.”

Indeed, big game experience and the fact that the teams are plying their trade in different tiers of the National League was the crucial difference in the end for Doyle.

“Tipp got to the All-Ireland final last year and are playing in Division 1. We are playing in Division 2 and our best game was in the Division 2 final when the pace was much higher than the group games. The pace of the game today was even higher again and maybe our fellas just weren’t used to it. The likes of Clare, Limerick, Wexford and Offaly need to be playing against the top teams, even if it means a couple of defeats along the way. You need to be playing the top teams to improve your hurling and to get used to the pace of the game.”

And what of the qualifiers?

“We will take it one game at a time. For the last five weeks since the league final, we just totally concentrated on June 19 and now we have to take lock, stock and barrell today and review the situation again. We will get nothing easy in the qualifiers, as Galway is a local derby and really when it comes down to it, there is nothing between all four teams in our round of the qualifiers.”

FRIENDS AND former teammates will gather in the Auburn Lodge Hotel in Ennis on Saturday night to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Ennis club Turnpike Rovers.

Founded in 1981 the first meeting of Turnpike Rovers took place in a room over Murphy’s shoe shop on O’Connell Street, Ennis.

The club’s first committee was made up of Tony Gilmartin (chairman), Brian McCarthy (secretary), George Guilfoyle (treasurer) with John Pyne and Michael Frawley serving as PRO and managers.

Other committee members included Donie Pyne, Martin Guerin and Francie Roche. Over the years many people have contributed to the success of the ‘Pike, as either players, managers or committee members. Some of the well-known names to have been associated with Turnpike include James Gormley, Michael Nugent, Michael Sheridan (RIP), John Lavery, Donal Pyne, Michael Guilfoyle, Ronnie Pyne and Frank Gormley. The club initially drew the majority of players from the Turnpike area, McNamara Park and Dalcassian Park. The club’s first ever set of goalposts were made by Paddy McHugh and Peter Fitzgerald in the Walnut House

The early days showed Rovers meant business. The team finished runners up in the division two shield in 1981 before going on to take the first division shield in 1983. In 1990, Turnpike were crowned Munster Junior Clare area champions and the following season lost out to Newmarket Celtic in the final of the Haughey Cup. The next season, Rovers reclaimed the Munster Junior Clare area cup with founding member Francie Roche netting the winner in the final.

The start of the decade also heralded another period of success with Turnpike winning the first division league and FAI Clare Area cup. Further honours followed in 2007 before Turnpike claimed the first division league cup in 2009.

Turnpike also enjoyed a period of sustained success in youth soccer throughout the 1980s and 90s. Under the stewardship of manager John Pyne, the club was crowned youths shield winners in 1983. That season also saw the club lose out to eventual winners Athlone in the quarterfinals of the FAI Youths Cup. A league titled followed in 1985 before Turnpike swept the boards in 1987, winning the youths shield, FAI Clare area youths cup, Munster Clare area youths cup, youths league and youths cup.

Further youth’s cup titles were snapped up in 1990 and 1991 while in 1993 Turnpike lost to Clonmel side Oldbridge in the final of the Munster youth’s cup.

In the 1984/85 season, Turnpike Rovers had the distinction of having two players named ‘players of the year’ in Clare soccer. They were Colm Fitzgerald and Derek McGann who was named ‘youths player of the year’. Over the years Turnpike were well represented on the Clare Oscar Traynor team. In that same season, talented midfielder Brian Pyne was a starter in all of Clare’s games.

Turnpike also enjoyed a period of success in schoolboy’s soccer taking league titles at under 12 (1985), under 14 (1986), under 16 (1991) and under 11 (1996). The club were under 11 cup runners up in 1998 while there were further titles at under 11 (2001/02), under 16 (2004) and under 17 (2005/07).

CLARE ENTERED the Munster championship with a bang but ultimately hadn’t the staying power to endure the entire journey as the experience and opportunism of All-Ireland champions Tipperary pulled the handbrake on this potential upset.

Clare were written off before a ball was ever hit in anger on Sunday but deep inside the camp lay a belief that all this young side needed to make it to the next level was a major scalp and they certainly don’t come much bigger than the All-Ireland champions.

In fact, it was true to say that Clare started much like the Premier played in last year’s All-Ireland final when hitting the ground running and not giving Kilkenny time to come up for air. However, while Clare can take immense satisfaction that they scored more than the Cats did in that decider, they also conceded four goals that were the difference between winning and losing.

Clare began like a whirlwind, with an intensity and spark not seen before by this group of players as they blazed a trail of 1-3 to 0-0 by the eighth minute, fittingly starting with championship debutant Conor McGrath’s solo goal after only 40 seconds that caused the crowd to rise to their feet. That ravenous opening was no fluke however as the collective work ethic was epitomised by the fact that their first seven points all came from different scorers, with the entire forward line getting in on the scoring action.

Such a blistering start would have severely dented the confidence of most sides in the country but with an All-Ireland title came a self-belief that never caused Tipperary to hit the panic button, despite the kitchen sink being thrown at them.

However, while their attacking unit was incisive, Clare were outdone by the concession of three goals in a five minute period that demoralisingly saw them trail by three points by the break, despite doing the majority of the hurling.

Individually, the backs performed well but collectively, Clare held what can only be described as a ‘bikini’ defence in that superficially it looked impressive but ultimately only covered the bare essentials.

The lack of competitive match practice against the top sides was also certainly a factor as was the sheer quality and ruthlessness of the Tipperary front six whose movement and guile were near impossible to constantly monitor.

However, hands will also be held up for what Clare manager Ger O’Loughlin would later describe as ‘naïve defending’. Basic errors that allowed Eoin Kelly to seize on a break to pull to the net and cut the six point deficit to three by the 16th minute; another break put Patrick Maher through for the second soon afterwards while Tipperary’s rehabilitation was completed in the 21st minute when two defenders went for the same ball, allowing Lar Corbett a clear path to goal that he would not pass up. They were devastating blows to Clare’s brave challenge but while the wind was momentarily taken from their sails, Clare did have enough character to reply with a brace of McGrath frees and at least regain parity.

The momentum was now firmly with Tipperary however and with Padraic Maher beginning to influence from wing back and confidence building in the attacking unit, Tip

ANGLERS FROM all over the county descended on Fanore last week for the 50th anniversary of the Lisdoonvarna Fanore Sea Angling Club. The event, which was hosted by O’Donohue’s Pub brought together some of the clubs newest and oldest members and also included a collection of awards won by Clare anglers over the last five decades.

The event also included a photographic history of the club and also served as an open day to attract new members to sea angling.

Speaking at the event club secretary, James Linnane, remembers some of the highlights for the club over the years – especially the success of some of the juvenile members.

“Four years ago Paul Norton from Ruan represented the Club in the Munster Juvenile championship, although not winning any medals on that occasion he was really keen to compete again the following year, this time he had real success not only did he qualify for Munster to compete in the Interprovincials but he made the Irish team to compete in Wales and the team came in second on that occasion – major achievement for Paul and the Club,” he said.

“Watching from the sidelines were young Stephen Birney, Cian Egan O’Brien, Sean Geraghty, Brandon Power and Joseph Birney, all who have competed in the Munster Juvenile Championships over the last three years.

“Last February Joseph Birney succeeded in making the Irish Team and will compete for Ireland in the home Internationals next month. Congratulations to him and we wish him well. These Juveniles are the future of our Club and are real role models for any juveniles out there who would like to get involved.”

James also pointed to the quality of the local angling – saying that it is amongst the best in the world.

“Here in north Clare we have some of the best sea angling coastline of anywhere in Europe – it is absolutely essential that we protect and safeguard this,” he said.

“Under no circumstances should we allow pollution, indiscriminate dumping of waste or over commercialised or illegal fishing to take this away from us. We can all see for ourselves the benefits that the promoting of Sea Angling has done for this area. We have a duty to the founder members of this Club and those not members of any club but simply walked the shore for their own pleasure that we leave area in as good or better condition than was handed to us.”

Meanwhile, Inagh and District Angling Club are holding a fishing competition this Sunday at Clonmacken Lake, Inagh. The competition starts at 2pm and will run until 6. Prizes will be awarded for Senior and Juvenile categories. Music and refreshments will be available at Dillon’s Bar and Restaurant after the competition where the Senior prizes will be presented. All are welcome.

THEY SAY defeat is only bitter if you swallow it and by the defiant tones of Fergal Lynch after Sunday’s defeat to Tipperary, the Clooney/ Quin man was not about to accept any moral victories regarding their impressive performance in the face of defeat.

“We are talking about good performances in Clare for the last 25 years since the 1977/78 teams. To be honest, it’s not good enough and we haven’t turned the corner. We need to turn the corner in the next couple of years because lads are going to go. Lads are going to leave the country the ways things are happening in the economy. We need to come up with a victory and we need to take one of the big teams. We are well capable of doing it but sometimes we were a bit naïve today in all areas of the pitch.

“We leaked goals and we should have got goals ourselves. We should have came out fighting fairly strongly in the second half and they seemed to tighten at the back and open the space at the front and they brought the game to us whereas we should have brought it to them.

“It’s a lack of a bit of cuteness and if we can develop that, we can turn the corner and there is no reason why we can’t beat any of the big teams.

Neither was Lynch willing to accept that playing in Division 2 was the main reason that Clare failed to maintain their impressive start throughout the 70 minutes.

“It probably did play some part in the end result alright but at the end of the day, we’re all intelligent people and we know exactly how to prepare for a championship match. All the lads inside know exactly what’s needed to win a championship match. The Under 21’s won an All-Ireland so they know what it takes. It’s back to the drawing board for us and we have this match under our belts and we are looking forward to the next game already. We are going to come out fighting out of this.”

That bout is against neighbours Galway whom Lynch has never faced in championship fare but is eager to redress that in a fortnight’s time in Pearse Stadium.

“We are looking forward to the qualifiers. There is no reason why we can’t perform in the qualifiers and there is no reason why we can’t take the likes of Galway.

“It’s just up to ourselves now how we react to this beating. How we react in training next week. How lads are going injurywise so the most important thing now is to get morale up and Ger [O’Loughlin] should be good at that. He’s good at getting lads going so he’d be very focused on trying to get us back on track because we are going to take a scalp this year and it’s going to be a big one and God help, who it’s going to be.”

It has to be Galway or Clare will have to settle for moral victories for at least another 12 months.

SOMETIMES THE silver lining is not immediately apparent in every cloud. Such was the case when Wolfe Tones lost up to 20 adult players through emigration, injury and retirements at the beginning of the year which inevitably had a devastating effect on the club. In all, the adult club has won only five out of 26 competition games this year, with only one of those victories coming from their hurling sides.

Therefore, the unprecedented success of the Under 14’s this year has been a welcome distraction and by winning the county Féile titles in both codes as well as the Under 14A hurling championship, it has given the club and the town of Shannon a much needed boost.

“It’s a great lift to everyone but really we don’t have a choice at this stage,” admitted Under 14 hurling manager Pat Williams. “With the country the way it is and with so many senior players gone through emigration, all clubs are affected but you’ve got to go back to the grassroots effectively. You’ve got to rebuild and it’s going to take time obviously but we are going the right way and this is the first stage of it.”

All the more satisfying then that this team are the fruit of their thriving underage academy that is in full flow in the background of Under 14 training and was initially set up to rectify the fact that Wolfe Tones had slipped somewhat from their lofty perch as underage hurling kingpins.

“90 per cent of these lads were with us at Under 6’s. They would have been born out of the academy.

“When you think back through this squad’s development, we contested the Under 12A final two years ago and were unfortunate to lose to Sixmilebridge on the day. So it was a case of either we dig deep or we lie down and we had a serious conversation with those group of lads after that county final and we made the decision that we would be back. Two years is a short time really and where we are now is down to hard work and the fact that lads were commited. If you want to succeed today, you’ve got to be committed, it’s as simple as that.”

With the national football Féile to come the following week in Cork, manager Williams, who is ably assisted by a backroom team of Matt O’Connor, Pat McCallen, Ray Carley, Jack Keary and Tony Flanagan, also points to a healthy relationship with the football management, for whom Matt O’Connor is manager, as the main ingredient to their historic success to date.

“We communicate all the time and we have a very good understanding. I think that is key to being successful as well because you hear of problems, especially with dual clubs but we communicate so well and believe me it helps.”

So what of Wolfe Tones chances in the finals themselves?

“Every competition we enter we want to win it. Féile at national level is tough but we are going to give it a good go believe me.

“Probably 70 per cent of this squad played in the Féile last year so they’ve had that experience as well and have got a taste for it. We had a good Féile last year albeit that we didn’t progress beyond the first round but we played some very competitive teams.

“We had the Dubs here and Offaly as well as Doora/Barefield so we were very pleased with last year’s Féile in fairness.

“We don’t know a whole lot about Clonoulty Rossmore who are in our group, we’ve had a taste of Craughwell and we seen a bit of Athenry so without being over confident I would be optimistic that we could certainly progress to the quarter-finals and everything after that is a bonus.

“It won’t be for the want of effort or lack of will from this bunch of lads anyway.

“At the end of the day, Féile is Féile and we know it’s going to be tough.”

If Williams and Co are searching for an omen, they need only look to 1988 when Wolfe Tones last completed a clean sweep of Féile titles and went on to add national titles in both, with many of that team subsequently influential in Wolfe Tone’s first county senior success in 1996.

The way things have gone, they could use a silver lining like that.