*Johnny Bridges. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
JOHNNY BRIDGES would prefer to be lining out for Wolfe Tones as they bid to win a first-ever intermediate championship double for the club but he’s content that serving as manager “is just as good”.
Bridges was midfield on the last Wolfe Tones team to win the Clare IFC back in 2014 when they overcame Corofin following a replay. He’s now manning the line in his second season as manager.
Speaking to The Clare Echo ahead of Saturday’s final versus Naomh Eoin in Cooraclare (15:00 throw-in), Johnny outlined, “Finals are there to be won, we’re sixty minutes away from playing senior football. The lads haven’t been in too many finals, I’ve been lucky to play in a few at underage, a few senior semi-finals and the intermediate, these days don’t come around enough. We’ve to be ready for a battle because we know Naomh Eoin will bring it”.
His own playing career ended in the senior ranks. “The last game I played was a famous one in Cusack Park, it was against Miltown when I got a red card and when we got relegated to intermediate with five teams going down, I missed the game against Kilmihil due to suspension, that was in 2018”.
An area sales manager with Titan Containers, Johnny has taken snippets of wisdom from different managers he played under. “I had Brendan Reidy as my manager from U12 all the way to senior, I also worked with Brendan so it was always football every day of the week, we live and breath football, the two of us. I came back from Australia in 2012 and Michael Riordan was manager, John Riordan was there, Matt O’Connor was manager with Ger Lawlor as trainer, I learned something from each one of them playing, I’m young enough and if you think about it I should still be playing if Chippy is still going, some lads can still do it and some lads can’t. I learned a lot from different managers”.
He continued, “We’ve had good coaches here like Donie Buckley, Jerome Stack, Gavin Curran, Ger Lawlor. When we won the intermediate in 2014 Jason Casey was manager but he was like one of the players, Brendan Hughes and Brian O’Connell were driving it from the start, we were very disappointed to go down the year before, that was ten years ago so hopefully it is an omen”.
Chippy (Chris Dunning), Gary Leahy, Joe McGauley, Aaron Brennan and Jayme O’Sullivan are members of the current side that would be former teammates of Bridges. “I kick every ball with them, that was my big thing last year in that I thought I was still playing on the sideline, you have to change when you become a manager, it is different to being out on the field, I get very excited on the sideline but who doesn’t when you’re in the thick of championship football, I’d love to be playing but being the manager is just as good”.
How he approaches the more experienced players is slightly different to the younger crew. “Chippy is one of the leaders so I don’t really need to talk to him, if you need him to speak on the pitch when he’s playing he is the right guy to go to and the same with Gary and Joe, the lads have a lot of respect for them and they are real leaders on the pitch. When we were down three or four points in the semi-final, the lads helped get us over the line, it was a kick of a ball in it. Gary, Chris and Joe, you let them be, they are it long enough, we played senior football when we were seventeen and eighteen, it is great for the young lads like Jack Ryan, Craig Riordan and Colin Riordan to be learning from them”.
Thirty eight year old Johnny believed that Wolfe Tones are a more united side this season. “When I was playing there was always this good sense of friendship, a closeness and we were always in it together, when we won ten years ago that was one of the big things, we were all in it to win it, that is what I tried to instil last year but this year the lads have really bought into it. We played the league final against Naomh Eoin, we were both missing key players but we went out, had a good battle and were lucky enough to win by a point, Jack (Ryan) got a great goal, the younger lads really stood up that day and I thought then that it could be a very good season”.
That Wolfe Tones was a dual intermediate club is something he could never have predicted during his own playing career. “We won the hurling (senior) in 1996 and 2006, the football was senior as a dual club for eight or nine years, we went down in 2013, it was a low point, getting back up in 2014 was the aim and we achieved, the hurlers going down that year didn’t help but we were a senior club again in 2016 when the hurlers had won a Munster intermediate, we fought relegation battles in 2015 and 2017 and learned from them but unfortunately the Clare County Board had to knock five teams out of it, if we hadn’t got relegated then we might still be a senior team but we’re here now and the aim is to get back. We want to be a senior dual club like Cratloe, Éire Óg and Doora/Barefield in 2025”.
Relegation from the Clare SHC last year prompted the club to reflect on where it was and where it needed to go. “We had to evaluate, the football especially at intermediate level, there’s great work done in the background at underage, we won a Minor B last year which was very good, a few of the lads are on our panel. The young lads need to be looking at Wolfe Tones winning, that will keep the spirit going, we’d be hoping to add three or four to the team every year regardless if we’re senior, intermediate or junior, that is what we need for Wolfe Tones to be competitive. When I was hurling, it was senior, intermediate and junior b, at football, it was senior and junior a, we need to be back up competing at the higher levels not just junior b and junior c, the club needs a lift from us”.
“Shannon needs Wolfe Tones to be senior, we’ve a big town with a lot of people working here, Shannon doesn’t seem to have an influence of out of towners playing for us, they work here but Colm Collins and them manage to snatch them. We need it, the lads need to be playing senior hurling and football, we need it for the schools and underage and to keep producing players, it was all about hurling and football when I was underage, I remember being out on the back pitch where we played football league when it wasn’t even an astro turf then,” he concluded.
