Minor hurlers tipped to advance

AS a result of some injury concerns, allied to the involvement of a number of players in U-21 county finals this weekend, the Clare minor hurling team management won’t name the starting line-up for Wednesday’s Munster championship first-round clash with Kerry until after the weekend.

Clare will open the defence of the provincial crown they won in impressive fashion last summer at Austin Stack Park in Tralee at 7.15pm.
Three survivors from last year’s panel, which went on to contest the All-Ireland final, remain doubtful for Wednesday’s tie. Newmarket’s Frank Melody has been unable to train in recent weeks due to a shoulder injury and he missed his club’s recent county U-21A championship semi-final. He is considered hugely doubtful for Wednesday.
Aaron Cunningham from Wolfe Tones, another from last year’s panel, returned to training this week having missed the last three weeks due to injury. Martin Moroney from Parteen is struggling with a hand injury and while he is expected to play with his club in Friday’s U-21C replay, a final decision on his fitness won’t be made until nearer match time.
Seadna Morey and Jamie Shanahan, first-choice players last year and expected to be in the starting line-up again this year, will play in the U-21A final on Thursday evening, while in addition to Moroney, the U-21C final on Friday will also feature panellists Eibhear Quilligan and Shane McGrath, both from Feakle-Killanena.
“We really know very little about Kerry. We have heard of all of the other county teams playing challenges but there had been nothing about Kerry. They have had good results at U-16 and vocational schools levels in recent years,” according to joint team manager, Gerry O’Connor.
The same management team remains in charge with O’Connor and Donal Moloney as joint managers, joined by Eamonn Fennessy, Jimmy Browne and Paul Kinnerk. Initially, Kinnerk had indicated he would not be available to continue in the role but he has been part of the backroom team since early February.
“It’s been difficult to get a regular training routine going due to the progress of Ard Scoil Rís to the All-Ireland colleges final and the running of the county U-21 championships. In recent years, Kerry have invited U-17 teams to take part in a tournament with their minor team. We were invited to that two years ago. Last year, Kerry got to the final of that event. They were very competitive for long stretches against us in Cusack Park last year, having put it up to Limerick in the first round a few days earlier and we, subsequently, saw how good Limerick were,” according to Éire Óg clubman O’Connor.
Is there pressure on this year after reaching the All-Ireland final last year? “The only extra pressure is the expectation within the county that we will win handily. Look at the Cork minor footballers last week against Clare. All the talk was that they would hammer Clare and that wasn’t the case. Last year we heard that we were going to hammer Limerick and Dublin and that Kilkenny would then hammer us and none of those games went like that,” said the Clare mentor.
The goalkeeping position rests between Eibhear Quilligan (Feakle) and Keith Hogan (Clooney-Quin). Barring injury, Seadna Morey will be in defence with Martin Moroney, Gearóid O’Connell (Ballyea), Niall O’Connor (Newmarket), Brian Carey (Sixmilebridge), Jack Browne (Ballyea), Micheál Ryan (Smith O’Brien’s) and Dave Barry (Clooney-Quin) challenging for places.
With last year’s midfield pairing of Tony Kelly (Ballyea) and Colm Galvin (Clonlara) still eligible for this grade, it is expected they will again form the midfield partnership.
This would leave Jamie Shanahan free to play in attack and others in contention for places in the forward line include Aaron Cunningham, Frank Melody, Peter Duggan (Clooney-Quin), Cathal O’Connell (Clonlara), Shane Liddy (Newmarket), Oisin Hickey (Meelick), Shane McGrath (Feakle) and Shane O’Donnell (Éire Óg).
While Clare certainly cannot afford to take anything for granted, the expectation is they will come out on top and progress to the provincial semi-final in two months’ time.