Bringing winning mentality into final

IF Clare are to compete with Cork on Sunday, mammoth displays from players with big-match temperaments and winning know-how will be paramount. Clare simply need their main men to perform in every sector of the Gaelic Grounds.

 

Among those brimming with a winning mentality is Kilmurry Ibrickane’s Enda Coughlan, who has two Munster club medals and five county championship medals to his name. He has played in four Munster club finals, including the 2004 replay and five county finals, not forgetting Kilmurry’s appearance in the 2010 All-Ireland club final.  Coughlan was also on the last Clare team to play in Croke Park in 2004, when they won the Tommy Murphy Cup.

He returned to the Clare panel prior to their last league game away to Wicklow and made his first championship appearance for two years, when he lined out at centre-forward against Limerick in the June 9 Munster semi-final. However, Coughlan had good reason for not being available to the county team last season and for this year’s league campaign.

“Last year I had to get an operation on my eyes. I had a condition in both eyes. So I was too late to come back last year and this year Maeve [his girlfriend] had a child and she’s after opening up her own business. So I was caught at the start of the year but when Micheál [McDermott] rang me at the start of April, I was in a position to come back,” the Limerick-based garda explained.

However, without his parents’ help, the Kilmurry Ibrickane utility player would not be in a position to commit to the county team.

“My parents have minded Abbey every time I’ve training and without them I wouldn’t have been able to play. As long as they keep doing that, I’ll keep playing,” he said.

While he was in decent shape on his return to the county panel, Coughlan has since put the hours in to get up to the level of fitness required for inter-county football.

“It took me a while to get up to the fitness but Micheál Cahill and the boys worked hard with me and gave me my own programme to do. I’ve done that now for two or three months so hopefully the next day, I might be a bit better,” he commented.

Since Clare’s one point semi-final win over Limerick, Coughlan feels the team’s self-belief has flourished.

“Winning a championship game always brings confidence and the win against Limerick seems to have brought a good bit of confidence. We’ve had two work-outs since [Galway and Offaly] and you can see the lads’ confidence is up and they’re playing a lot better.

“Maybe before when we were getting caught in games, confidence was down and things were going against us.  Against Wicklow things went against us but since the Limerick game and, even in the Limerick game, confidence seems to be up and lads are playing out of themselves,” he suggested.

He cannot wait for 2pm on Sunday and feels as long as Clare retain their new-found self-belief, they can take on Cork without fear.

“It’s days like this that you want to play in. We’ve worked hard and we’ve put in the effort. We have to believe in ourselves and I think belief has increased since the Limerick game,” he reiterated.

Although he played at centre-forward on June 9, it is likely Coughlan will feature in the half-back line this weekend. Ideally, he would prefer that but he said he’ll give it everything in whatever jersey he pulls over his head.

“I’ll play wherever I’m put but it’s no real secret I prefer playing in the half-back line. Even with Kilmurry, I always prefer the half-back line but wherever they want me to play, I’ll play,” Kilmurry Ibrickane’s serial winner concluded.