*Peter Duggan captains Clooney/Quin this season. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
THE STARS APPEARED to be aligning perfectly for Clooney-Quin’s latest championship assault until a major spanner was thrown into the works in Croke Park three weeks ago.
Having gathered momentum in the Clare Cup, thanks initially to the Clare minor class of ’22 (Sam Scanlan and Dannan Fox) before a further boost of county Under 20 returnees (Jack O’Neill, John Cahill, John Conneally, Evan Maxted, Darragh Keogh) catapulted them into a first Clare Cup final in 79 Years at the beginning of the month, it was envisaged that the boost of county senior Peter Dug-gan and Ryan Taylor would provide the final pieces of the championship jigsaw.
However, Taylor’s knee injury that forced him to retire before half-time in the All-ireland Semi-Final against Kilkenny turned out to be a cruciate injury that ends his playing season and is a real ham-merblow to his side’s plans.
However, with such exciting young talent at their disposal, manager Tommy Corbett is looking for-ward to seeing where Clooney-Quin can go over the next few weeks. “Getting to the Clare Cup Fi-nal was a bit of a bonus as it wasn’t something that we set out to do from the start of the year. We had hoped to get promoted alright but really, like most teams, the aim of the Clare Cup is to kind of blood a few players and really just get a look at who you have, see who responds best to senior hurling and hope that it follows on to the championship.
“The lads coming back from the Clare Under 20’s was a big boost and then with Peter [Duggan] and John Conneally rejoining us too it has added a further impetus into things but unfortunately Ryan Taylor is gone for the year so it’s a big loss for us.
“We’ve great numbers at training which is a huge boost but realistically you can’t just throw six or seven 17 or 18 year old into a senior team straight away. Look, some lads will surprise you as you how well they respond to senior hurling and obviously that can go the other way too so for us, it’s a case of trying to best blend the youth with experience. And you really don’t know how that’s going to pan out until you cross the white lines and perform in the championship because the Clare Cup and the championship are worlds apart really,” he told The Clare Echo.
How big the Clare hurling solar system actually is will only be realised over the next month but with shockwaves ringing through the championship already after only two matches last weekend, if anything it has only helped focus players on seizing the day especially in the opening round. “All four teams reached the quarter-finals last year so while there’s never any easy game when it comes to championship anyway, there’s definitely no easy game in our group. It’s a bit of a group of death so we certainly won’t be taking anything for granted one way or the other and we can’t afford to either”.
Kilmaley’s twelve point defeat of back-to-back county champions Ballyea not only reopened the door of possibility and romance for the remaining 16 teams but also demonstrated the im-portance of hitting the ground running albeit not essential according to Corbett, who is in his sec-ond year in charge of Clooney/Quin.
“You really want to win your first game if at all possible. And that may not happen, it didn’t hap-pen for Éire Óg last year and yet they went onto the county final and it also didn’t happen for Bal-lyea this year so with such fine margins between most sides, a bit of luck could make all the dif-ference. So you do want to start well as a win would kind of set you up for the rest of the group stages. We’ve been only focused on Wolfe Tones since the Clare Cup ended so we’re really look-ing forward to getting going on Saturday evening”.
Clooney-Quin
Management: Tommy Corbett (Manager); Barry Corbett (Coach); Ronan McMahon, Tony McMahon, Brian McAllister (Selectors); Victor O’Riordan (S&C); Maureen Duggan (First Aid); Danny Palache, Liam Keating, Jerry O Connor, Damien Guilfoyle (Video/Stats); Aidan Daffy
Captain: Peter Duggan
Key Player: Peter Duggan
One to Watch: Jack O’Neill
Fresh Blood: John Cahill, David Considine, Dannan Fox, Darren Frain, Lorcan O’Connor, Cillian O’Gara, Jack O’Neill, Sam Scanlan,
Departure Gate: Keith Hogan, Ulick O’Sullivan, Ruaidhri McNamara (abroad); Bryan McIn-erney, Ryan Taylor (Injured)
Titles Won: 1
Last season’s run: Quarter-Finalists
Schedule
Round 1 – v Wolfe Tones at Cusack Park Ennis, Saturday 6pm
Round 2 – v Newmarket-on-Fergus (Weekend of August 11/12/13th)
Round 3 – v Cratloe (Weekend of August 25/26/27th)
