*Eoin Cleary. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE WILL EMBRACE the extra pressure that comes with Sunday’s Munster senior football quarter-final, captain Eoin Cleary has said.
Appointed captain of the county footballers in 2020, Cleary has relished the role and has been a model leader, stepping up with vital scores at opportune times but also setting the way with the workrate expected of modern day inter-county forwards.
Having the captaincy has forced him to change the position he occupies within the dressing room. He admitted that his predecessor Gary Brennan has been very helpful with various nuggets of wisdom which assisted him when taking on the role. “Being captain of any team is a new role, you’re no longer one of the lads which is one of the big things you learn, I’ve had a great help from listening to the likes of Gary Brennan and Gary would be a guy who would give you his time outside of training to give you different pointers and ways to improve as a captain, it’s great to have a great guy like that willing to give his time like that. The fact I was able to learn from Gary and the fact he could also give me good advice has been a huge help to me in the role of captain”.
Commitment involved with GAA teams is constantly increasing, Eoin outlined that taking on the captaincy also requires more time. “You’re a lot more conscious of how other guys are feeling in the group, how they are getting on in their outside life, more communication than you previously would have had, I definitely would have found the role of captain is more time consuming and the role of an inter-county player is already very time consuming, it’s a responsibility that I’m very grateful Colm gave to me, there’s a number of leaders in the group who make my job very easy and have been a great help be it other players leading by example in the group, there’s games where I haven’t been playing that other lads have taken up the mantle as captain very well, I’d be very confident in the group whoever is leading the team because even though I’m captain by name there’s a number of guys that are leaders on the pitch and play a similar role, I’m very grateful to those guys”.
An example of how it has changed him is his reaction to seeing Colm Collins’ name appear on his phone when he receives a call compared with when he was one of the more inexperienced members of the panel in 2015. “When you see his name come up on the phone your heart would drop for a minute, a lot calmer now and I’ve developed a very good relationship with Colm over the years, he is a great guy and a guy you can trust, he will tell it you straight, when he’s telling you something it’s not to make you feel better it’s the truth, when you have a guy like that behind you then you will do anything for him really”.
Like Collins, it is also Eoin’s tenth championship campaign with the county at senior level. “As you become older your preparation becomes better, you learn from the older players on the panel when you were a younger member of the panel, you cherish everyone that comes now because between injuries and different commitments you don’t know when it will be your last one so I’m very much looking forward to the coming campaign after the league just gone”.
Having been part of the Clare sides that won promotion from Division 3 and 4 of the NFL, the Miltown Malbay native most recently experienced relegation from the second tier. He said they will be determined to put a positive spin on their year by making the most of the championship. “The lads got a good result against Limerick to break the duck of the five game loss. Performance wise outside of the Derry and Cork games we were quite pleased with our performances but ultimately it is down to results and unfortunately we didn’t do enough to stay up, seven games tells its own story so we were disappointed from that aspect”.
Occasions when they fail to produce a level of performance that they know they are capable of remains one of the most frustrating aspects in sport, Cleary said. “The Cork game in Ennis was one of those games especially in the second half we didn’t do ourselves justice, at crucial points in different games we didn’t do enough to get over the line, the work that goes on in the background with the backroom team that Colm has assembled has been top class, it was very disappointing for everyone in the group because a lot of work has gone into this panel from management and players, we’re hoping to see a lift in championship and the work going in will hopefully be rewarded with some good wins and some good performances in the coming championship”.
There is a lot on the line this Sunday for Clare but he’s confident they will respond in a fitting manner. “With the Sam Maguire and Tailteann Cup format we know that if we don’t win on Sunday we’re out of the Sam Maguire and ultimately that is where every player wants to be, they want to play for the biggest prize and on the biggest days, we know what is stake after the league campaign. In other years the Munster championship hadn’t as high a value but now it’s the biggest competition we’re in and we’ve to try get a performance on Sunday and hopefully get a result”.
“I remember in years gone by this team does perform very well under pressure, after losing to Kildare in Cusack Park a lot of people would have been going up to Dublin and not expecting the performance we put in. In 2020, we lost to Laois in Cusack Park and Westmeath the game before but we went up and beat Cavan who had won the Ulster Championship, when our backs are to the wall we normally perform well so you’d be very confident with the players in the group and hopefully we can produce another one on Sunday”.
That such an important game is taking place in Cusack Park is to be savoured. “As a young fella between going to football and hurling games in Cusack Park, it’s huge and it’s what every young fella wants to do, when you hear that Clare roar when it’s getting tight it does give us a bit of a lift so we would hope to see a crowd on Sunday to get behind us because in the closing minutes of games you can always hear the back of the stand banging when a few points go over and you can feel that on the pitch, we’ll be hoping for that on Sunday”.
Changes to the management team have brought “a huge lift”, Eoin felt. “Fresh blood into any setup brings new energy and in fairness to Micheál, Brian, Mark Doran and Joe Hayes they’ve brought a great lift to the setup, they’ve brought the different experiences that they have and added a new impetus to the group, it takes time for players to gel and learn new ideas, hopefully we can implement that against Cork”.
At the time of Hayes’ retirement from the Clare goals, Cleary was quick to point out his fashion faux pas of wearing crocks with bootcut jeans, the fashion stakes have improved within the panel since then according to the captain. “No one is as controversial as Joe, he still wears the crocs and bootcut jeans, Joe has taken on a different role, when he with the panel before he was the goalkeeper and now he’s the goalkeeper coach, he’s a more serious head on him at training sessions, he’s knitted in well with the group and it’s like he never left”.
His fellow panellists “are well up to date with the latest fashion tips. I was working at the races last Thursday and seen a few of them at it, they are a lot better equipped to deal with society these days from the fashion side of it on social media. The current generation think of a lot more things, even these days it’s different how you communicate with people through social media, people are a lot more conscious of different social media platforms, it’s good that guys are able to meet lads of an older generation here who didn’t have that behind them and are able to learn different things about them, we’re all learning from the young fellas and they are learning from us”.
Hayes would also have been viewed as a joker on the panel prior to his retirement. The role is now occupied by characters from Ennis and Coolmeen, Eoin flagged. “Gavin Cooney and Cathal O’Connor would be the serial offenders, they are gas men, everyone likes to crack a joke but they are two gas men alright”.
His twin brother Conor lines out at full back for the county’s hurlers leaving their parents Caroline and Gerry with plenty of games to attend. Few differences exist between the footballers and hurlers, except for the sport they play, Eoin stated. “There was a myth out there that the footballers weren’t as well supported as the hurlers, I’ve been part of the panel since Colm took over and I’ve seen fairness across the board, both setups get the same amount of gear, the same training facilities, both are well looked over, we’re very happy”.
Given the time involved, the importance of switching off is vital. For Eoin, he does find that his work as a Garda in Limerick City takes the focus off football. “When I do have time off, I like to travel and go abroad to switch off. Work is quite time consuming, that is one difficult thing with inter-county setups that the sleep pattern is not consistent being a Garda and working night shifts but that is something I’ve dealt with reasonably well over the years but as the years go on it gets that bit tougher, the job keeps me on my toes, I’m working as a Garda in Limerick City, everyday is different so it’s great that I can go into work and totally switch off from football. Working in a different city you’re anonymous really so it’s great in that way”.
Key players like Gary Brennan, Gordon Kelly, David Tubridy, Kevin Harnett and Sean Collins have retired from inter-county action in recent years but Cleary has been impressed with the quality of players entering the senior panel at the revolving door. “The win against Roscommon last year in Croke Park gave a huge lift to everyone in the county, when you lose guys of that calibre it is always going to be tough to replace them, no more so than David and the lads in the year just gone. There’s young guys coming thick and fast through the group, Since I was a young fella Clare have been a lot more competitive in U17 and U20 campaigns, the quality of player coming into the group is a lot higher than what it was five or ten years ago, it is adding a lot of quality to the group and making the quality even higher”.
Seasons change and his role within the squad is very different but the feel of championship is still as powerful. “Initially you’re training in November, December and Christmas time, you’re going out with your friends and it’s that bit harder to get yourself motivated for the league but championship it’s very easy to throw on the boots, the sun is shining, you’ve four or five months of hard training, you’ve seven games in the bank and it’s very easy to motivate yourself for championship, you see people out in their Clare jerseys I suppose they can’t put them on in February because it’s so cold but it is very easy to motivate yourself for championship”.
