Tag Archives: hurling

LAOIS senior hurlers may not have had a great season to date but Clare selector Louis Mulqueen believes the Midlanders will travel to Clare this Saturday determined to overcome the home side in Round 1 of the hurling qualifiers. “Laois were here in Clare last weekend and they trained in Cusack Park on Sunday morning, which suggests that they are not just coming down here on Saturday to make up the numbers,” selector Louis Mulqueen said. “Galway struggled against them in the championship last year. Clare are the favourites to succeed on Saturday but Laois have shown in modern times that they can match the best, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that Clare will win on Saturday.” Over the last decade, Clare have been made to fight all the way for victory over Laois, when the sides have clashed in both league and championship. Laois have struggled this season and did poorly in both the league and championship. Mulqueen …

The way is clear for the semi-finals of the junior A hurling league (division 4) and both games will be played next Sunday (July 3). Broadford have finished on top of the league table after the completed their  programme of games with victory over St. Josephs, Doora-Barefield. Ballyea finished in second place thanks to a comfortable win over Tubber this Saturday evening. Despite going down to O’Callaghans Mills, Meelick remain in third spot with the Mills filling the final play off position. In next week’s semi-finals Broadford will play O’Callaghans Mills while Ballyea will face Meelick. Meanwhile, in the junior B hurling league (division 5), Newmarket and Wolfe Tones 1 have qualified from division 5 A, Parteen are through from division 5 B while the qualifier from division 5 C will be confirmed after Wolfe Tones 2 play Broadford on Tuesday. Wolfe Tones must win to stay in the race and then it will come down to score difference between …

Clooney-Quin 2-15 Sixmilebridge 2-6 History was made at Cusack Park this Friday evening when Clooney-Quin won the under 14 A Clare hurling championship for the first time, beating a fancied Sixmilebridge team in the process. On their way to winning the Clare feile na nGael title two weeks ago, Sixmilebridge had pipped Clooney-Quin and they went into this evening’s final carrying the favourites tag. Clooney-Quin took control from the start and raced into a 0-3 to 0-0 lead before Sixmilebridge opened their account. The winners, however, dictated matters and led 0-8 to 0-1 with just nine minutes played. Sixmilebridge received a great boost in the twentieth minute when David Kennedy struck for a goal but within a minute Clooney-Quin had replied with a like score from their full forward Shane Harrisson and they went on to lead by nine points at half time when the score was 1-10 to 1-1. The winners had the first score of the second half …

ON Monday night next, UTV Ireland will air a documentary that will be of particular interest to Clare GAA fans. My Toughest Year, which will be broadcast at 8pm, follows the recovery of one of GAA’s best known and most talented young players, dual star Podge Collins, from a cruciate injury he suffered 12 months ago and which cast doubt on the future of his playing career. He suffered the injury while playing for his club Cratloe in the Senior Hurling Championship. Over the past 12 months, UTV Ireland sports reporter, Marie Crowe, from Sixmilebridge, followed Collins throughout each step of his recovery process, gaining exclusive access to his medical procedures, his rehabilitation and his fight to regain match-day fitness. Collins is set to play Munster championship football for Clare this Sunday against Limerick and, seven days later, will line out in the senior hurling semi-final against Waterford. In recent weeks he made history by playing a key role in …

THE Clare Senior Hurling Championship will get underway with the meeting of Tulla and Clarecastle on this Friday evening, with all 16 teams in action over the weekend. An opening round victory will mean the threat of relegation from the top grade is eliminated. A new format was introduced last year, which will see one of the eight first-round losers relegated to the intermediate grade for next season. Following the first round, the eight winners will be drawn against each other, while the eight losers will also be drawn to face each other with the four losers going on to battle it out in the relegation play-off. Two of last year’s semi-finalists will find themselves in the losers round, as Sixmilebridge (holders) take on Crusheen and Clonlara (beaten finalists) face Kilmaley this weekend. In the semi-final last year, Clonlara needed a replay to overcome Kilmaley before they disappointed in the final against Sixmilebridge, who went through last season without tasting …

Clare have announced one late change to the starting line up for today’s Allianz hurling league final replay with Waterford from the team named on Friday when an unchanged fifteen from that which started in last week’s drawn tie had been named. Eire Og’s Shane O’Donnell will now start in place of Peter Duggan and the 2013 All-Ireland hero has been named at full forward. Waterford named their team on Friday and that shows one change from the drawn tie with Tom Devine, an impressive second half substitute last week, starting in place of Colin Dunford. The Clare team is Patrick Kelly (Inagh-Kilnamona); Oisín O’Brien (Clonlara), Pat O’Connor (Tubber), Cian Dillon (Crusheen) – Joint Captain; Brendan Bugler (Whitegate), Conor Cleary (Miltown St.Josephs), David Fitzgerald (Inagh-Kilnamona); David Reidy (Éire Óg), Colm Galvin (Clonlara); Darach Honan (Clonlara), Tony Kelly (Ballyea) – Joint Captain, Aaron Cunningham (Wolfe Tones); Podge Collins (Cratloe), Shane O’Donnell (Eire Og), Conor McGrath (Cratloe) By Seamus Hayes

IT is no surprise to hear Darach Honan say that his “parents would have shaped my interests a lot” and that those recreational interests have hurling high on the list. His father, Colm, was still hurling with Clonlara when Darach was young. “I would regularly meet people who would be talking about hurling. I would have heard all the stories about the league finals that Clare won when he was playing and about the Munster finals in which they played. If we can win on Sunday, I will be half way to equalling his tally, as he has two league medals,” the Clare forward told The Clare Champion. “There is great confidence in the camp. We are going very well this year and we have a lot of work done. We had a bit more done than Kilkenny. It is important for us to do well in the league. The last couple of years weren’t the best for us, so …