It Is The Public Health Officials Who Are Making The Decisions And They Have All The Information.

Clare senior hurling manager Brian Lohan is among those hoping that a phased plan to lift the COVID-19 restrictions will have a positive impact in the coming months.

The Wolfe Tones clubman saw his positive start in his new role cut short with the ceasing of all sporting activity once the outbreak began. Clare had come through the group stages of the National League campaign unbeaten and were preparing for a last four showdown before the halt came. Lohan admits it is a difficult time for all concerned.

“It is strange times and tough times for everyone across a number of area whether that is family life or working life and the sporting side of things is tough too. We were training in UL on the Tuesday night and we have our gym sessions on the Wednesday. One of the guys on the panel was working in Dublin and was asked to self isolate. It was not anything to do with him, it was just connected to a colleague of his. We got on to the public health officials to see was it still ok for us to train and as it turned out it was a false alarm so we went ahead. We got the notification then on the Thursday from Croke Park that all training had to cease and that is what happened. We have not been back since then collectively. There has been a serious amount of work done since we got together for our first session on November 17. Our lads have trained really hard since then without a break. When this happened, the question became about how we were going to maintain the level of fitness they had reached while not having them burning out by doing too much. We have been trying to get as much information as we can about what might be happening. At one stage it looked like it might be July and then that has gone out to September or October, assuming there will be any championship at all. Dealing with that uncertainty at the moment is certainly challenging for everyone involved” stated the two-time All-Ireland winner.

Gatherings of more than 5000 people are currently banned until at least August with that announcement casting even more doubt on the future of the 2020 campaign. The GAA have already moved to pass special powers on to their management committee which will allow them to react quicker to a fast evolving scenario, but Lohan feels it is out of the hands of the GAA at this stage.

“It really is up in the air and while there is a little bit of frustration there, I think everyone appreciates that it is not the call of the GAA. It is the public health officials who are making the decisions and they have all the information. They are trying their best to do the right thing for the country at the moment so we just have wait and see how it plays out while in the meantime keeping the lads ticking over as best we can. If there will be championship or league matches coming back towards the end of the year, we just have to be ready for that. The ideal scenario at the moment is just to get some games and have a championship. If that can be facilitated it would be great and the ways things are, we would take any kind of championship, whether that is a round robin or straight knockout. I think the way things are, realistically it would have to be a straight knockout and we would take that if we could. In relation to playing behind closed doors, if it meant getting games played then we would take that too as long as the safety of everyone involved would be guaranteed. That is paramount in everyone’s thinking. I was talking to someone recently who reminded me that after the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001, the first match was a midweek league game between Clare and Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds in front of a crowd of 17,000 people. You can see there is a massive appetite from supporters and players to get back on the field but we have to be conscious of public health advice and that will be the chief consideration” he said.

Off the field, the four time All-Star defender also feels that Covid-19 has had a devastating impact and the Shannon-based auctioneer and financial adviser outlined his fears that the social welfare bill in the current lockdown is not sustainable.

He said: “My business is financial services and property services. Financial services would be considered essential but the property services wouldn’t be as much. Like some businesses, there are parts of it that are essential at the same time. If someone needs you to do a valuation on a property and their mortgage depends on it, then you try to help them out as best you can. It may not be deemed an essential service but without that work being done, the people who are waiting on their mortgage approval can’t finalise that without it. When decisions like that are made so quickly by Government, the definition of what is an essential service can be different depending on what side you are looking at it from. We have been working away and obeying the social distancing rules while only travelling for those essential services. I am no expert on the economy but I think we need to see some of the restrictions lifted. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that one million people on social welfare from a population of four million is just too much and is not affordable. We need to get people back to work and it is a tough call for the people in power at the moment. They need to make that decision to let people back to work while also considering if that decision is in line with public health guidelines so people are protected and safe. It is a tough decision for all concerned but we need to get more people back to work sooner rather than later”.