When Clare bring war to Cusack Park it creates a championship atmosphere to rival any other venue in the country, writes Joe Ó Muircheartaigh ahead of Sunday’s game when the Banner County hope to put a marker down and take the All-Ireland champions’ scalp. “Clare, wearing the old saffron jerseys with blue hoops for the first time in years, crashed into the exchanges from the word go in a manner reminiscent of their ancestors’ assault on the English ranks in Fontenoy.” Gerry McCarthy, The Irish Press, 1972 It’s a war to the power of hurling. Same as it ever was. Febrile, hostile, primal and all topped and tailed by all-consuming bursts of noise to the ebb, and flow and giving it that concertina effect – all somehow self-contained within the airspace of the ground. It’s home to what Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin calls organised ‘chaos’ and ‘markers down’, while Podge Collins cuts to that almost spiritual and awe-inspiring feeling of having …
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