Harvey Confident Clare LGFA Are On The Right Track For 2020

Derrick Lynch

It has been a hectic start to the season for Clare Ladies football with three quick-fire games to open the campaign, including two trips to Ulster.

There was no game last weekend, but that did not mean that the schedule eased in any way. That was also the case for Caoimhe Harvey, who celebrated her 21st birthday last Thursday.

She is no stranger to the inter-county scene as she looks forward to her fifth season with the Clare side. The West Clare Gaels woman admits the first few games of this campaign have been testing, but says everyone is just focused on learning as they go.

“For the last three weekends we have been playing really tough teams. It has been hard playing senior teams and while we have not got the results that we wanted, but as a group of players and management, we took a lot from them. We are improving in every game and hopefully now that we are facing a fellow intermediate team and we have them at home, we can get the win. Performance is everything for us at the moment. Our first game was in the last week of January and it can be a long few months before you even start to think about championship in the summer. We are not panicking at the moment, we are just focusing on improving in every game we have and that is our main focus” she said.

It is a third season for Caoimhe working under manager James Murrihy, and she feels the new additions to his backroom have had a huge impact on the group.

She said: “I joined the panel in 2016 and this is the best set-up for Clare Ladies football that I have seen in that time. All the girls are expected to be at training and if someone is not there, we know why they are not there. Everyone is giving total commitment and that is what it takes from everyone in the squad. You also have to have trust in your management group and this is the third year now with James. We have the likes of Martin McMahon and Ger Keane involved with us too, and James is able to liaise with them so they know about each one of the girls. The set-up is fantastic this year and we are really privileged as a group of players to have that kind of support available to us”.

When the league campaign comes to an end on the last Sunday in March, Clare then face a wait until mid-July before their next competitive fixture. Harvey feels that gap between games means they will have to be extra vigilant in training to ensure they are ready for it when it comes around.

“When you start back in November, it really is square one. We played a challenge game in the middle of December and I had not played a game for six months before that. You just need to focus on the basics of getting your kick-pass right, your hand-pass right and all those basics that you start out with at U-12 level. You still need to be working on getting those things right at adult level to make sure all the basics are right. We have that 12 week break between the league and championship, and that is the time where we are really going to have to focus. We are the only intermediate team in Munster so we will not have any provincial championship to prepare us. It might mean that we are not as match sharp as other teams will be coming into the qualifiers but we just have to keep focused and keep working hard” she noted.

Clare sit just above Wexford at the bottom of the Division Two table coming into Sunday’s game against Meath, but Caoimhe is confident they are well primed to pick up their first points of the campaign.

“Meath are always going to be fighting tooth and nail. It is a vital game for us as a group to try and get the win in order to build that confidence. Training has been going really well, even with Storm Dennis, but we have to focus now on Meath. It is a home game for us and we have to work out putting all those lessons we have learned from the last few weeks into practice. We have three really tough games put down at this stage and that should stand to us. It is going to be a real dogfight and we will have to work really hard again to pull it out of the bag” she finished.