Sports

Twelve months ago, Shane O’Donnell had a very different task ahead of him. The Éire Óg sharpshooter was facing into the second half of a Harvard scholarship. This year, his January will be slightly different. O’Donnell says he relished the life opportunity going to Harvard afforded him, but this year he says he’s relishing the chance to have a full season back with the Clare hurlers. “It has been a brilliant couple of months so far and I have really enjoyed the preseason, which was obviously quite different from a personal point of view to last year. Once you move closer to the league, people get to put the torture and horror of preseason behind them,” Shane joked. “Last year was a great experience for me, but from a hurling point of view it wasn’t the ideal preparation for championship. I missed out on all the preseason and the league, and I can already feel myself being more confident for …

Derrick Lynch It has been a memorable 12 months for the new Clare ladies football captain Ellie O’Gorman. Fresh from leading Kilmihil to a first ever Clare senior crown, she was then chosen to take over the captaincy role from Laurie Ryan for the county team. That came quick on the heels of changes in a professional sense too as she found herself moving closer to home for work having spent three years in Dublin as a maths teacher. She is now based in Galway and travels with her now vice-captain Grainne Nolan to training with the journey much less arduous than a round trip to the capital with just her thoughts for company. Maths teaching is something she is passionate about, and credits her secondary school teacher and fellow Kilmihil native Bernie Burke with giving her that love for the subject. Football is clearly a passion too and she admits being asked to take over as captain for the …

IT MUST be very hard to watch your county compete in make-or-break games from halfway across the world, knowing you would be on the squad were you at home. That itch will be scratched in 2020 by Aaron Cunningham as he has re-joined the Clare senior squad since his return home from Australia. The Wolfe Tones man decided to travel the world in 2017 and his voyage took him to San Francisco and Melbourne, with a few pitstops along the way. The Shannon man is now back and – his fellow clubman and Clare manager Brian Lohan will hope – it’s with a vengeance. Cunningham is known for his speed and the 26-year-old will be hoping to hit the ground running in 2020, but he knows it is going to take a massive effort to hit the heights he did before leaving. “I thought about going back with Clare and I said that I wasn’t going to do it if …

St Flannan’s 0-18   Our Lady’s Templemore 1-13 ST FLANNAN’S booked their place in the Harty Cup final with a dramatic two-point victory over Our Lady’s Templemore in Nenagh this afternoon. Despite having a strong breeze, the Ennis school trailed by 1-7 to 0-9 at the break and it appeared they had a tough task on their hands. The Clare side never wavered under pressure and it was Templemore that eventually yielded the lead in the final quarter of the game as an onslaught led by Cian Galvin and Ashley Brohan from placed balls ensured St Flannan’s would doggedly prevail. They now face CBC of Cork in the final. It was a nervy start for Flannan’s with four wides in the first three minutes but once they settled – they were the dominant side of the first half. Stephen Casey, Cian Galvin and Ashley Brohan had the lion’s share of scoring for Flannan’s in the first half while Kevin Maher and …

AS the curtain raises on another national league campaign for Clare, manager Brian Lohan insists his squad want to go on a run in this year’s league and to make the most out of every inter-county game his side have this year. Clare kick off their campaign against Carlow this Sunday in Cusack Park and Lohan and his charges are keen to hit the ground running. “We are looking to go as far as we can in the national league. There aren’t that many inter-county games in a year; this year we are only scheduled to have 10. Five of those are national league games, so that tells you how important they are. “You’re also going to try and see as many guys playing as possible, but at the same time you’re going to be trying to win games and get a bit of confidence from that. There is nothing worse than losing games so, it will be a bit …

IT IS the biggest game of their lives for most of Jim Minogue’s squad but the Scariff-Ogonnelloe manager is confident his side are ready to surprise a few people. The East Clare amalgamation take on reigning All-Ireland champions Slaughtneil in Ashbourne, Meath this Sunday for a place in the All-Ireland senior club final and while they will be outsider Minogue says you wouldn’t know it from his side. “The mood in the camp is very good and training has been going really well. We’re progressing very nicely and we’re going to be good to go. Some had the U-21s after the Munster final and then they took a break for college exams, but we went back at it St Stephen’s day, so we have had a good run at it. “It is a great challenge for us and Slaughtneil are an unbelievable team. What they have achieved is unreal, but we are going into the game well prepared and ready …

Derrick Lynch Colm Collins is facing into his seventh National Football league campaign as Clare senior football manager when he takes his side to Cusack Park in Mullingar this Sunday for the opening round of the 2020 series. Since his debut season in 2014, Collins has overseen arguably the most progressive period for the game in the county with the climb from the basement tier to the top half of the standings serving as testament to that. It is also worth noting that since he has taken over the reins, Clare have never dropped back down a tier in the league with Sunday marking a fourth consecutive season in the top 16 teams for the Banner. That record becomes all the more importance with this year’s league taking on added significance as the new format seeing the teams that drop out of Division Two potentially missing out on a run in the All-Ireland qualifiers later in the year. Collins feels …

Derrick Lynch A first Harty Cup final appearance since 2007 is the goal for St Flannan’s this weekend when they go to McDonagh Park in Nenagh to face Our Lady’s Templemore. The Ennis school came through a tricky local derby against St Joseph’s Tulla in a historic quarter-final tie, with Diarmaid Cahill’s outstanding individual goal in the final quarter eventually swinging the balance in their favour. St Flannan’s have been improving in each of their outings so far in this campaign with a perfect record in the group stages before that win over Tulla. They have been forced to come through some stern tests along the way too, but there is a real sense that there is even more to come from a hugely talented squad. All that has to be measured against the fact that they are probably coming up against their toughest opponents to date. The Tipperary outfit began their campaign with an eye-catching win over a fancied …