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Tag Archives: Cork

The memory lives 100 years on

Ollie Byrnes THIS year marks the centenary of Clare’s first All-Ireland hurling championship win.  As we continue to enjoy being current holders of the Liam MacCarthy Cup, it is only fitting that we look back 100 years to honour and remember the men who won the senior and junior hurling championship double in 1914. It was a very different world then.   In European terms, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand lit the fuse that plunged the continent into the Great War in August 1914.  Women didn’t have the vote and Emily Parkhurst, pioneer of women’s emancipation, was jailed for protesting outside Buckingham Palace, and not for the first time.  In Ireland, we still lived under British Rule.  Independence was on many people’s minds and life was a struggle. In hurling terms, life and work impacted on training and opportunity.  These days, the All-Ireland championship is a sophisticated journey involving coaches, motivators, nutritionists and media appearances.  In 1914, it was a …

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Kissane content with winning start

A VERITABLE glow of satisfaction exuded from Clare coach, Paudie Kissane as he spoke outside the Clare dressing room in Dungarvan. An All-Ireland winner with Cork in 2010, the now retired wing-back has played on the biggest stages available to a Gaelic footballer but last Sunday, it was clear what an opening win in Waterford meant to him. “The first half was a bit mixed and for the first 10 minutes of the second half, we were under a bit of pressure. They were coming forward but we didn’t panic and we forced them to make mistakes and caught them on the break and got some good scores,” was Kissane’s analysis of Clare’s seven-point win. Clare started with U-21s Martin O’Leary and Jamie Malone in the full-forward line. Kissane made it clear that age or experience aren’t something that he dwells on. “If you want to see what a guy is made of and try to give him a chance …

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Driven Kissane settles into Clare role

PAUDIE Kissane will spend much of this weekend behind his steering wheel. The 33 year old Clare coach, who retired from inter-county football in 2013, will be in Miltown Malbay on Friday for Clare training, while they are due to play Castlebar Mitchels in a challenge on Saturday. The following day Kissane’s club, Clyda Rovers from Cork, play Mayo and Connacht champions, Kiltane in the All-Ireland intermediate club semi-final in Ballinasloe. All going well, next week Kissane will be preparing for an All-Ireland club final and Clare’s opening league game away to Waterford on Sunday week. In recent weeks the 2010 All-Ireland winning wing back has had to prioritise his county coaching role above his club commitments. “If I’m going to do the Clare job right, I have to be fully committed to it. If there has been any clashes, over the last few weeks, Clare had to come first. The club have been very good trying to arrange a …

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Banner captain hoping for a memorable birthday

IF Banner Ladies are to become the first Clare club since Cooraclare in 1996 to win the Munster A senior ladies title, team captain Niamh O’Dea will have a key role to play. The Kilfenora girl and third-year UL maths and PE student has scored 3-17 in her last three games. Her 1-11 county-final tally helped Banner Ladies to an easy win over Liscannor, while O’Dea put away 2-2 in last weekend’s Munster B final win over Ballymacarbry from Waterford. Ironically, Cooraclare defeated the same club in a thrilling Munster final 17 years ago, winning 4-10 to 2-15 after extra time. It is Cork opposition who stand in the Banner’s way on Saturday in Kilmallock. It won’t be to the forefront of Niamh’s thinking until at least 4pm on provincial final day but if the Clare champions win, she will particularly enjoy her 20th birthday celebrations. “It’d be a good birthday present, wouldn’t it?” she laughed. She is confident the …

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Nothing Cork could do about O’Donnell – McGrath

SPEAKING to The Clare Champion after the game, Cork selector Seanie McGrath said his wife, an Ennis native, would torment him later. “She’ll be doing my head in tonight!” he laughed, showing good humour in the face of disappointment. He acknowledged Shane O’Donnell’s three goals in the first 20 minutes had a huge bearing but said the scores had been created further out the field. “I wouldn’t say that we got caught out there. When we knew that Shane O’Donnell was in, we didn’t change our match up because we felt that Shane (O’Neill) was still well capable of handling it. I think that Shane O’Donnell had an outstanding game but a lot of the goals and the creation of those goals came from out the field to be fair. There were overlaps and he was at the end of some great moves. “But, all in all, he had an unbelievable game, 3-3 in an All-Ireland final. I’ve seen him …

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Clare manager David Fitzgerald meets with Cork manager Jimmy Barry Murphy following the All-Ireland senior hurling final at Croke Park. Photograph by John Kelly.

Beaten by a better team

CORK were simply beaten by a better team, Jimmy Barry Murphy readily acknowledged after the game. “My initial thoughts are that, on both days, we were playing catch up from the word go and it’s a difficult thing to do. When you’re in that situation you have to do everything right to get back into a game. We did an awful lot of things right, but it’s got to be perfect at that stage and our luck eventually ran out. We were beaten by a much better team on the day, on both days, I’ve got to acknowledge that they deserved it,” he said. Asked if Cork could have won the game if they had taken the lead after drawing level from eight points behind, he said, “That’s one of the great imponderables, if we’d taken our chances when we got back level it may have been a different story but we didn’t. There was too much to make up, …

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Eight hurleys made for outfielders to face Nash thunderbolts

AFTER the drawn game everyone knew that any 21 yard free for Cork was likely to result in a goal and on Saturday evening Cian Dillon said that especially large hurleys had been made for defenders to use whenever Nash came up the field. “It was kind of funny in training when Fitzy told us there might be 12 or 13 of us on the line and that we’d be getting hurleys made for us. We had eight especially big hurleys to try and stop them! It didn’t work for the first one, he didn’t really connect with the last one, maybe he was put off by the amount of us!” the Crusheen defender said. Clare led by four points at the break, but it had been eight points earlier on. While Cork had found their stride, there was still great confidence in the Banner dressing room, Dillon said. “At half time, in every game we’ve played this year, we’ve always …

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Three week gap can be challenging – Canning

ONE man with recent experience of preparing for an All-Ireland senior hurling replay is Galway’s Joe Canning. The Portumna man was in Thurles last Saturday week as a Bord Gais ambassador at the All-Ireland U-21 final. Canning rescued a replay for Galway with an injury time equaliser, 12 months ago. The replay with Kilkenny was the first in an All-Ireland since 1959. With hindsight, he says Galway would prepare differently but he feels gearing up for a replay is a challenging proposition. “We lost, so we’d have other ways of going about it that we might think of now. At the same time, it’s unknown territory for every team that’s in it. When you’re going into an All-Ireland, you’re thinking you’re going to win or lose, you’re not thinking about a replay,” he suggested. Canning remembers the weeks bridging the draw and replay dragged appreciably. “How to deal with the three weeks between the matches is the big thing. You’d …

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