*O’Callaghans Mills’ Conor Cooney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
To say that the recent Clare Cup triumph was a welcome jolt for O’Callaghan’s Mills would pehaps be one of the understatements of the entire year as expectations levels certainly didn’t reflect the reality.
Without the pace and power of Colin Crehan, Gary Cooney, Jacob Loughnane and Ciaran Cooney to name but a few, the Mills only had seven of the side that lined out in the 2020 County Senior Final at their disposal for the business end of the Clare Cup but still managed to prevail against Scariff and Clooney/Quin to soar to a first title in 28 years on home soil at the start of this month.
Winning a Clare Cup is one thing through as almost every team is severely understrength where-as the real acid test comes with championship and whether the Mills can rise accordingly is the question that Paul Keane is looking to answer in his first year in charge.
“Look, silverware is always good as it gives confidence to the players,” begins the Adare native.
“But as a new management team, the way we’ve looked at it from the very start is just to only take things from week to week by getting the best out of ourselves at training and also in the next match that’s coming up too. That’s no different for this championship but there’s no doubt that the Clare Cup win has given the players that we got to see over that campaign huge confi-dence.
“I mean when we were down players for the Clare Cup, it just provided opportunities for those players that are emerging through from the underage system to settle in at senior level and even get five or six games in a row that allows them to feel their way into what’s required in a certain position.
“So to date these players have definitely stepped up but obviously when it comes to champion-ship, everything steps up another gear so on Saturday we’ll get to see if can make that step up again”.
So being his first taste of Clare hurling, what are Keane’s impressions of the group that his side have been handed?
“To be fair, all the group seems difficult enough. Being honest, all the senior teams in Clare ap-pear relatively even and there’s real quality there throughout the championship so wherever you turn, there’s no easy game but that’s what you want too, to be able to test yourself against the best. We’ve Clonlara on Saturday who have great inter-county experience in their side so there’s no doubt that we have to raise our levels a few gears from the Clare Cup in order to compete against them”.
Already down those aforementioned core players albeit that Clare’s 2013 All-Ireland winning cap-tain Patrick Donnellan returns after missing the latter stages of the Clare Cup while former county senior Gary Cooney is also rumoured to be flying home from Australia, new injury concerns have hit the squad ahead of Saturday’s opener against Clonlara in Sixmilebridge (5pm).
“Bryan Donnellan broke his finger at training last week so he’ll be out for a while while Sean Cotter has been struggling with hamstring problems and he’ll be out for Saturday’s match as well. But I suppose we haven’t had a full squad for any of the Clare Cup games and we always just got on with it and that’s just what we have to do again. The next guy just came in and did his job as best he could to fit into the system so it will be the same this Saturday really. Look, it would be a great boost to win on Saturday and would obviously take a bit of pressure off but regard-less of the result it still won’t define the rest of our season.
“We’re going out to do the best we can and hopefully get the win but if we don’t we’ll just regroup for the following day as that’s the way we’ve treated every match we’ve played in this year so far and we’re not about to change at this stage.”
O’Callaghan’s Mills
Management: Paul Keane (Manager); PJ O’Connell, Seanie McNamara, John Cooney (Coaches/Selectors); Declan Noonan (S&C)
Captain: Aidan O’Gorman
Key Player: Gary Cooney
One to Watch: Darragh Moroney
Fresh Blood: Cathal McNamara
Departure Gate: Colin Crehan (transfer), Gary Cooney, Ciarán Cooney, Jacob Loughnane, Cathal Lenihan (abroad); Bryan Donnellan, Sean Murphy, Sean Cotter (Injured)
Titles Won: 8
Last season’s run: Group Stages
Schedule
Round 1 – v Clonlara at O’Garney Park Sixmilebridge, Saturday 5pm
Round 2 – v Crusheen (Weekend of August 11/12/13th)
Round 3 – v Sixmilebridge (Weekend of August 25/26/27th)
