The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
Two-time All-Star John Callinan thinks that the key to success on Sunday is matching Kilkenny’s legendary physicality and then letting Clare’s speed take over. BACK in 2018 Justin McCarthy gave a stirring speech at Clare County Council headquarters in Ennis when the Clare team he coached to beat Kilkenny in the National League finals of 1977 and ’78 were accorded a civic reception. In it, he told a story about a fellow countyman of his — the greatest to ever wear the jersey in fact — being behind the goal at one of the finals telling a Kilkenny selector what needed to be done to beat Clare. The moral of the story was that the heavyweights wanted to keep things to themselves — interlopers upsetting the status quo were allowed or wanted. That attitude mightn’t have gone away completely, but it has been blown away over the past 40 or so years with the successes of Galway, Offaly, Clare, Wexford …
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