The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
He was commenting in the aftermath of Mick O’Dwyer’s decision not to seek a second term after 12 months in charge of Clare.
“It’s my opinion that after the departure of Mick O’Dwyer, we should allow Ger Keane and Michael Neylon time to make a decision as to whether they want to continue with the Clare senior football team. If they do want to do it, then it should be a fait accompli. We have our management team,” the county chairman asserted.
He rejected the suggestion that the state of football in the county should be placed under more scrutiny and that the performance of all outgoing football management teams, senior, U-21, minor and junior, should be closely examined before any management set-ups are put in place.
“My honest opinion is that we have a lot of people here that are fairly on the ball with football in the county. When decisions are made, it is important that there is a link between the minor, U-21, senior and junior teams. That is something that I would like to see happening and that there would be a complete link all the way through.
“We have young lads there that we are losing between 19 and 21, once they finish minor. A lot of these fellas that are there or thereabouts should be given the opportunity to train at the highest level. I’ve watched five young lads being brought in for the last three weeks with the seniors and they have improved out of measure because they are training at the top level,” McDonagh replied.
Although Clare lost three of their four home league games and were beaten at home in the championship to Cork and Laois, he didn’t accept that Clare made no progress at senior level this year. The board chairman pointed to the fact that Clare won away to Leitrim, Offaly and Carlow in the NFL.
“People might say they went backwards but they played savage football away from home. They have a lot of young players in there. It went to the last game as to whether they qualified for the league final or not. So you could ask, did they play good or play bad? You could argue that one and I’d be saying that they did well,” McDonagh stated.
The new county minor football management team was appointed at Tuesday’s Clare County Board meeting. Clubs were informed about the meeting late on Monday night via email. However, the emailed agenda made no reference to the appointment of minor football management.
“The bottom line is we had a number of meetings with the two groups that were interested in taking over the minors. There was no point in leaving it until September to put a minor management in place.
“Aidan O’Keeffe and Joe Considine have played at the highest level for Clare and they are interested in taking the job for three years. They deserve their chance. They were with the U-16s last year and this year and they deserve their chance.
“The outgoing management team have done marvellous work and I hope they will get involved down along the line whether it is with underage or other Clare panels,” McDonagh concluded.
