Micko clocks up the miles for Clare

CLARE senior football manager Mick O’Dwyer has been acquainting himself with the county’s geography since his appointment to the post on, November 2.

 

Much of Clare’s December training has taken place in the back pitch in Corofin and Clarecastle, where the Waterville man has cast his wizened eyes upon the best that Clare football has to offer. He now knows every inch of the road between South Kerry and Ryan’s Field in Clarecastle, where Clare have held a number of December trial games.

 

Last Saturday night the eight-time All-Ireland-winning manager was guest of honour at the Kilmurry-Ibrickane presentation night in Quilty on St Stephen’s Day.

On St Stephen’s Day members of the Clare football panel descended on Seafield for a training session in the sandunes and seashore, in terrible weather conditions. Micko was not in attendance.

Before the Christmas break, Micko presented Gaisce medals to second-level students in Kildysart. He enjoys the driving though and couldn’t envisage donating his hours to anything other than inter-county management.

“I’m well used to driving so it doesn’t take any effect on me. I love driving to be honest. I’ve been in a motorcar all my life so it’s no different now than going to Laois or to Wicklow. But then again, we hope to be going more West when the pitches dry up and we’d be hoping we’ll get the pitches back in the West for the summer months, which would be good,” Micko, who won four All-Ireland medals is his playing days, said.

Last Saturday’s trial game in Clarecastle was due to start at 2.30pm and although the clouds were overflowing and the wind billowing all before it, O’Dwyer arrived at 1pm.

“That’s a policy of mine. Discipline is number one. If you set a time, be there on time. This idea of coming a quarter of an hour or 10 minutes late, that’s not on. Every player should be there at least a half an hour before training starts, to be prepared to go. That’s most important and that’s where discipline starts,” he asserted.

Micko is happy enough with what he has seen so far but will be more content when the weather improves after Christmas and Clare start playing more football.

“No matter what you do in this game of ours, physical fitness is very important but then you must play plenty football because on the day of a game, you have to play with a ball. So we need to play a lot of football and that’s what they need. What I find with the Clare fellas is that they need to practice more and more with the football. That’s going to be very important and we’ll be doing a lot of that when the pitches dry up and when we’ll be able to get the pitches,” he predicted.
Getting to know everyone, including players, management and the county board, takes time but Micko says that he’s working on it.

“It’s going to take a bit of time. I don’t even know all the names of the players yet. But that’s only natural, there’s so many of them there. As for the county board, they’ve been forthcoming and have been giving wonderful help. They’re really behind us and the management that’s in place, I don’t think you could get better anywhere. For a start, I’ll be depending quite a lot on those men to tell me exactly what the situation is. So they have most of the power at the present time,” he said of Michael Neylon, Ger Keane and strength and conditioning coach Micheál Cahill.

“The goodwill is unbelievable. There is no question or doubt about it. Clare want to do well at football, as well as they do at hurling. There’s no doubt Clare is a hurling county.

“We understand that but there’s also room for the football side there as well. Things are coming together nicely. We’ve had a big panel of players there and we’re getting a good commitment. There’s no complaints at all. Things are going ok but it will take a bit of time to get the whole thing organised.

“It takes a bit of time to have a good look at the players and then the weather has been so bad. It’s not easy get pitches and that’s most important, that you need pitches to play football on. But we can’t blame anyone at the moment because the weather is the cause of all the problem,” Micko noted.

Although the senior panel is likely to be reduced somewhat early in the new year, O’Dwyer will be keeping any eye on how the U-21 players are going as they prepare for championship on March 27.

“We’ll be keeping an eye on those fellas. We’d be hoping to promote some of those fellas into the senior panel as the year goes on,” he said.
As for himself, Micko wouldn’t have it any other way. His life has been dominated by football and travelling. He’s not thinking of letting up any time soon.

“I suppose I’m totally addicted to the bloody thing. I can’t get away from it but I’m delighted and thrilled to be part of this now and I’m just hoping things will work out well for us,” he concluded.