Tag Archives: Darach Honan

I don’t know if Ballyea or Clonlara mentors attended the senior football final replay at Cusack Park last Sunday but if they did, they are sure to have noticed that Kilmurry-Ibrickane learned more from the drawn game and that the changes they made to their line-up were key to their victory. The hurling management teams know both sides have room for improvement. What changes, if any, they will make could well be the key to unlocking the opposition this time around. Ballyea will have at least one change in personnel now that full-forward Eoghan Donnellan has been ruled out due to injury. At least one change to their forward line-up was expected anyhow, after Martin O’Leary’s impressive showing in the second half of the drawn game, following his introduction at half-time. If Ballyea are to win, there will have to be a big improvement from their forward line, which managed just one point between the starting six in the drawn …

A championship that has produced its share of talking points without setting the world alight with regard to the standard of play draws to a close on Sunday. The expectation is, however, that Clonlara and Ballyea will give patrons an afternoon to remember. In opposition in the senior hurling decider are some of the players who have shone in an eight-year period where county teams have won Munster and All-Ireland honours at minor, U-21 and senior levels. Supporters have marvelled at the performances of the likes of Tony Kelly, Colm Galvin, Darach Honan and John Conlon, while the O’Donovan brothers will forever be remembered when Cormac was the scorer of a last-minute point that won the 2009 All-Ireland U-21 title and when Domhnall earned a replay in the 2013 senior final. Ballyea’s only previous final appearance was in 2003, when they had to give best to their fellow parishioners. Clarecastle man Fergie O’Loughlin went into the history books as he …

IT is no surprise to hear Darach Honan say that his “parents would have shaped my interests a lot” and that those recreational interests have hurling high on the list. His father, Colm, was still hurling with Clonlara when Darach was young. “I would regularly meet people who would be talking about hurling. I would have heard all the stories about the league finals that Clare won when he was playing and about the Munster finals in which they played. If we can win on Sunday, I will be half way to equalling his tally, as he has two league medals,” the Clare forward told The Clare Champion. “There is great confidence in the camp. We are going very well this year and we have a lot of work done. We had a bit more done than Kilkenny. It is important for us to do well in the league. The last couple of years weren’t the best for us, so …