Is Brennan to be Clare’s next dual player?
By Seamus Hayes
This weekend, Clare football captain Gary Brennan is focussing on leading the county’s senior footballers into their Munster championship first round clash with Waterford at Cusack Park.
Two of his team mates are Podge and Sean Collins who are also key members of the senior hurling panel, a position Brennan could well find himself in, in the near future.
Speaking this week ahead of next weekend’s Munster senior hurling semi-final, Clare hurling selector Louis Mulqueen spoke highly of Brennan’s hurling credentials. “I have watched him a lot and he has banged in a lot of goals. He was also student of the year at Rice College and his brother was student of the year this year. I am very impressed with the Brennan family”, Mulqueen said.
Brennan has impressed with Ballyea in the senior hurling championship last season and again recently in the first round of this year’s championship campaign.
Commenting on the decision of both Podge and Sean Collins to play both codes with the county this year, Mulqueen said, “The big thing about the balance is that the players don’t get caught in the political power pull so that they can achieve their best in both and that they don’t pick up injuries. Cork have done it successfully. We will know in the next twelve days how achievable it is for Podge and Sean. If he (Podge) plays a blinder and an all star performance in both matches, everyone will be giving a thumbs up and saying its brilliant but if he gets injured and twists his ankle in the football match we will be saying, it doesn’t help us. A lot is balance and its trial and error. It hasn’t been done too much in Clare. Its groundbreaking at the moment for us to be All-Ireland champions in hurling and get promotion in football. As the year goes on we will look at it. I wish the footballers well. It means an awful lot in Clare at both levels”, he said.
Continuing Mulqueen said, “When you are playing both codes, there are decisions to be made by managers and by players. I remember I used to play five different codes when I was 18 and I would be looking at the Clare Champion every week and petrified because you would have a soccer match, a rugby match, two hurling matches and a football match all in the one day and you would be letting people down”