Donnelly drives on

Rory Donnelly is enjoying the promotion drive but he has picked up a hamstring injury, writes Peter O’Connell

Rory Donnelly has been one of several Clare forwards doing his bit for the county’s promotion drive in recent weeks.
The Galway-based engineer scored three first-half points in Cusack Park last Sunday, following up on a similar return against Carlow in Dr Cullen Park two weeks ago.
On a less positive note, the Cooraclare club man picked up a hamstring injury late in the game against Leitrim. Donnelly is hoping he might be fit for the game against London in Ruislip on Sunday but he wasn’t confident of his availability when he spoke to The Clare Champion on Tuesday.
“I’ll see how it goes over the next few days but I’m doubtful for the weekend at the moment anyway. I’ve had problems with hamstrings before. I escaped it last year but the year before, I had the problem four or five times. I don’t like to be crying about it either but once I heard a bit of a snap on Sunday, I called a halt to it,” he explained.
Along with Alan Clohessy, Shane McGrath, David Tubridy and Michael O’Shea, Donnelly has kicked crucial scores in recent games. He isn’t losing the run of himself though.
“We’re going alright. We’re getting enough done to win the games. We’ve had our purple patches in matches and put up scores.
“On Sunday, we put up a good score at the start of the game but we didn’t kill it off. But for James Glancy drove the penalty over the bar, we possibly could have been back in a hard slog again,” Donnelly said.
“Aside from that, we were always in control of the game, though we never really kicked on. We didn’t get ruthless enough with them. That’s been a problem for us over the last few games. While we’ve played reasonably well, there’s more in us,” Donnelly believes.
He is adamant that Clare are fully focused on playing London and are not heading over believing they are in for a less than taxing 70 minutes.
“It would be unrealistic for a Clare team to look too far ahead. We’re taking every game as it comes. Hopefully for the weekend, we can clear up a few of the injuries. Michael O’Shea should be back hopefully. That will be a boost as well. We were in this position two years ago when the chance was there. Hopefully this time around we can take it,” he said.
Having been injured two years ago, when Clare nearly won promotion to division 3, the corner-forward is enjoying the fact that Clare are going well.
“I don’t know if we’ve ever been promoted in a league campaign. Certainly in my time playing with Clare, we’ve never even come close to being promoted.
“I missed two years ago because of injury so this is my first time being this close to being promoted,” he confirmed.
Living in Oranmore ensures Donnelly doesn’t have too far to drive to training, whether it’s held in Clare or Limerick. On a work note, he is relieved to have employment when so many thousands of people are either out of work or have to emigrate.
“Every club is being hit with emigration. It’s good to be able to stay around and still play football,” he concluded.