Clare to put on a good show in Cork

IN the summer of 1997, Clare senior sides were not a prospect other counties took lightly, as the hurlers took their second All-Ireland in three years and the footballers reached the Munster final after an unforgettable come-back against Cork.
It was the pre-qualifier era and when the Banner trailed by six points, it looked like their championship was coming to an abrupt end. However, inspired by Kilkee’s Ger Keane who scored eight points, Clare took victory following Martin Daly’s last-gasp goal.
A few weeks later, they took on Kerry in the Munster final and put in a respectable performance despite falling to the eventual All-Ireland champions.
The dramatic semi-final victory over Cork was one of the highlights of Keane’s time in the saffron and blue, he says.
“I suppose it would have been one of the games I scored most in, between play and frees. We were going well as a team and there was a very strong panel, there were a good few subs used on the day. I actually wasn’t the normal free-taker but I ended up taking them that day and they went over,” he recalls.
That Clare team had experience of beating Cork, while they had beaten Kerry in that year’s McGrath Cup final.
Fourteen years on, he feels that Clare could have profited had the qualifiers been in place at the time. “When I saw Fermanagh, they reminded me of us. They were a small, fast team and they had a great run. At the end of the day, it would have been nice to beat Kerry and go through the front door as well. We weren’t far off that Kerry team and they went on to win the All-Ireland. If we could have got to another Munster final and kept knocking on the door. We didn’t get to another Munster final until 2000 and the team had changed around by then. We played Kerry then and a lot of lads had gone at that stage. There was still the basis of a good team there but Kerry had gone on to the next level and in ’97, they were more there for the taking.”
If Clare were to turn over the national league and All-Ireland champions this Sunday, it’d be the biggest GAA shock for many years. While he doesn’t expect Clare to win, Keane feels the Banner can benefit from playing against the best. “I saw a good few of the league games, they’ve been competitive in them all, maybe lacking a bit of consistency alright and it cost them a couple of games. In fairness to Micheál McDermott, he’s tried to bring in a younger panel. They may be at a bit of a crossroads at the moment in terms of that. There’s a core of players that are 22 to 23, there was a good U-21 team there this year and another one coming next year. It’d be very hard to expect Clare to win on Sunday but hopefully, they can be competitive and can put up a good show. They should have a right lash and hopefully give themselves something to build on for the qualifiers and for next year.”
Some of the county’s most talented footballers won’t be in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday but he feels there is little point lamenting that. “The other side of it is that the day is gone of lads walking onto a county team and getting a job out of it. A lot of lads are looking at jobs and prospects and if they don’t want to give a commitment of four nights a week that’s fair enough as well. I wouldn’t look at that side of things. You just get on with it and it’s the same in every county. If you don’t have ambition and don’t want to step up to the plate, it’s pointless talking about it. The lads who are going down on Sunday, you’d respect them because they’re putting their names on the line and their bodies on the line and I wouldn’t give a second thought to lads who don’t challenge themselves to put on a county jersey,” he said.
He joined the county panel in ’93, when Clare football’s stock was at an all-time high. While the county is now mired in Division 4, he says things can turn around relatively quickly. “I came onto a team coming from ’92 and we had leaders like Noel Roche, Tom Morrissey, Aidan Moloney and Gerry Kelly, everything was set up for us. There was a good set-up and leaders, we were playing division 1 football. If Clare could get a bit of positivity going, get the supporters back on track by showing there are a few young lads coming through, it could take off. Clare were beaten by Waterford in ’89 and it got going in ’90 and ’91. It doesn’t take that much to turn it, just one or two performances at different stages might just make a team,” Keane concluded.