Sports

With the way the championship has unfolded, fate has been rather favourable to Clare. It goes without saying that Brian Lohan’s side would have loved to have captured provincial silverware and certainly would have appreciated lifting the inaugural Mick Mackey Cup much more. However, apart from that set-back, the hand of destiny has thrown up Leinster duo Wexford and Kilkenny, two sides that Clare would arguably have handpicked themselves if they had the choice to potentially tee up a historic fifth competitive outing against Limerick in the All-ireland decider. All that speculation aside, the reality is that while the Wexford game was expectedly close, they were possibly the perfect team for Clare to pip at the post too. Not reaching anywhere near the heights of their previous provincial displays would have meant an early exit against a much clinical side. However, Wexford left a wounded Banner in the contest so when Brian Lohan’s side did manage to find their groove …

Former Kilkenny hurler Eoin Larkin feels both his native county and Clare have something to prove as the race for Liam MacCarthy has come down to the final four. Larkin, who certainly knows about winning in Croke Park, having claimed eight All Ireland titles with his county, feels that Kilkenny will be keen to show that their defeats to Galway and Wexford in the round robin series were only momentary blips. Meanwhile, he also believes that Clare will want to confirm that their performance for the first 60 minutes against Wexford was simply a hangover from the Munster final. The James Stephens clubman argues this is the more unpredictable of the two semi finals as both sides lie just 70 minutes away from an All Ireland decider. “It probably is the more unpredictable semi final. Clare produced a performance in the Munster final. What Clare will turn up in Croke Park though? Kilkenny are in the same boat because they …

Two-time All-Star John Callinan thinks that the key to success on Sunday is matching Kilkenny’s legendary physicality and then letting Clare’s speed take over. BACK in 2018 Justin McCarthy gave a stirring speech at Clare County Council headquarters in Ennis when the Clare team he coached to beat Kilkenny in the National League finals of 1977 and ’78 were accorded a civic reception. In it, he told a story about a fellow countyman of his — the greatest to ever wear the jersey in fact — being behind the goal at one of the finals telling a Kilkenny selector what needed to be done to beat Clare. The moral of the story was that the heavyweights wanted to keep things to themselves — interlopers upsetting the status quo were allowed or wanted. That attitude mightn’t have gone away completely, but it has been blown away over the past 40 or so years with the successes of Galway, Offaly, Clare, Wexford …

Clare have only beaten Kilkenny once in senior championship hurling — it was the year the revered Con Houlihan called the Banner County the most deserving champions of all time, recalls Joe Ó Muircheartaigh from a quarter of a century ago. WHEN JAMESIE O’Connor arced to the left and then off his left fired over the most important point of his hurling career from underneath the old Hogan Stand into the Hill 16 end to win the 1997 All-Ireland it was the cherry topping on a cake that had many tiers. Clare had done what Mick O’Dwyer told Ger Loughnane they had to do when they met at a function down in Cork the previous year — that was to win a second All-Ireland to prove the greatness of the team. A first couldn’t do that, but a second most definitely would. “It can be argued that Clare are the most deserving champions of all time,” wrote Con Houlihan in …

There’s a notable surge of excitement as well as apprehension ahead of tomorrow’s penultimate stage clash with Kilkenny at GAA headquarters (5.30pm). Much of that is based on the old adage that ‘what’s rare is wonderful’, a novelty factor that not only extends to being only Clare’s third All-ireland Semi-Final appearance in the past 16 years but also a dearth of championship clashes with Kilkenny in the same period. The thing is though that being only the eighth ever championship encounter between Clare and Kilkenny, seven of those have involved Brian Lohan as the Cats always provided a major stumbling block to the Banner’s ambitions during they golden era. “They were always tough, tight games and difficult opponents to play against,” recalled Lohan this week. “They were the type of opponent that didn’t need a huge amount of possession in that they could get a very good return on the amount of possession they had. Invariably they had quality scorers …

The Cumann na mBunscoil finals brought a riot of colour and excitement to venues in Ennis and west Clare recently. The Champion photographers were on hand, along with reporters to record the action and we present more of it here. If you like what you see in any of these galleries you can purchase pictures by contacting calling 065 6864150 or emailing sales@clarechampion.ie To see our full collection please visit: https://photos.clarechampion.ie/archive/ Photographs can be purchased via the above link. You can also contact us via Facebook.    

FIFTY-THREE years after its foundation, Shannon Town United officially opened its new clubhouse last weekend. “It’ll cost over €300,000 by the time the furniture and fittings and so on are done, well in excess of €300,000,” said the club’s chairman Ger Kelly. The clubhouse has four changing rooms, a referee’s room, kitchen, two reception rooms upstairs, a public toilet and an office. “We first put in the planning permission about four years ago, but when that planning application went in it was only for two dressing rooms. “Then with the growth of the schoolboy teams and girls teams we knew we needed bigger facilities, so we went from two to four. We also decided to convert the upstairs into a function room and a meeting room,” says Ger. The clubhouse means a major improvement to the facilities. “We’ve had a prefab, we have a steel shed down at our other pitch at Corrib Drive, but for over 50 years we’ve …

In the coming days we will be publishing a selection of photographs from the recent Cumann na mBunscoil finals. If you like what you see in any of these galleries you can purchase pictures by contacting calling 065 6864150 or emailing sales@clarechampion.ie To see our full collection please visit: https://photos.clarechampion.ie/archive/ Photographs can be purchased via the above link. You can also contact us via Facebook.