Clare minor manager Ger O’Connell has happy memories from his own minor days nearly 30 years ago and hopes to make some more with the 2025 generation
If you’re looking for a comparison of how things have changed between Clare’s first All-Ireland victory at minor level and now, look no further than the man who will be doing all he can to ensure that the current crop reaches for the stars in 2025.
Manager and son of Clonlara Ger O’Connell. Rewind to 1997 when he manned the gap in goal and Clare won the Irish Press Cup for the first time with an All-Ireland final victory over Galway in Croke Park.
“They were great days,” he recalls, “and it was brilliant as we would have been the first minor team from Clare to win it — thankfully we have won a couple of more since.
“They are memories for life and friends for life that you will always have,” he continues, “but everything has just come up tenfold since I was a minor.
“It is at a completely different level. The level of S&C that these lads are doing is something that we wouldn’t have been doing. There wasn’t S&C.
“In my day, there was a lot of running, a lot of laps — there was no goalkeeping coaching. I would have done all the drills that the boys would have done, all the running. That has all changed. We have a goalkeeping coach and they do all separate drills from the lads.”
A different era then, but now completely different, because 1997 was the first year when the backdoor was opening in All-Ireland competition. Defeat in the Munster final that year didn’t mean the end of the year and Clare were able to come again.
“Young kids develop at different times and they get better as the competition goes on with more confidence,” he continues. “Being able to lose that Munster final against Tipperary and not to be knocked out — it wouldn’t have happened previously — was great for us as a group and…