*Cian O’Rourke, Tommy Barry, Evan McMahon, Dan Cunnane and Cillian Fennessy.
Backed by the biggest county contingent in this year’s Underdogs squad and Clare’s highest representation in the entire 19 year history of the TG4 GAA reality series, the hurling quintet of Tommy Barry, Dan Cunnane, Cillian Fennessy, Evan McMahon and Cian O’Rourke have been thoroughly enriched by the entire experience.
Having stemmed from different sides of the county and motivated to apply for varying reasons, they admittedly stepped into the unknown to try and make their place on the final 30 man panel to take on Davy Fitzgerald’s Waterford. However, following a seven month TV journal of trials, preparations and matches under the stewardship of coaches John Allen, Claire O’Connor and Jamie Wall, the five strong Clare delegation re-emerged with unforgettable memories and a lifelong bond with the entire squad they soldiered with.
A month on from the ultimate climactic showdown against National Hurling League champions Waterford on Deise soil on the Bank Holiday Halloween weekend, the self-monikered ‘Clare Dogs’ were reunited, well virtually at least, to relive their unique adventure. And despite not really knowing each other off the field beforehand, their shared experience became quickly apparent to this host, particularly when discussing the journey and subsequently asked to pick Clare’s Best Underdog.
Name: Cian O’Rourke
Club: Wolfe Tones
Age: 23
Inter-County Experience: Development squads up to Minor
Underdogs Motivation: Redemption
Name: Dan Cunnane
Club: Ogonnelloe
Age: 26
Inter-County Experience: Development squads up to Under 17
Underdogs Motivation: Evaluation
Name: Evan McMahon
Club: Feakle
Age: 26
Inter-County Experience: Under 21 Panelist
Underdogs Motivation: Opportunity
Name: Tommy Barry
Club: Kilmaley
Age: 24
Inter-County Experience: Development squads up to Under 16
Underdogs Motivation: Hurling addict
Name: Cillian Fennessy
Club: Clonlara
Age: 31
Inter-County Experience: Development squads to senior panelist
Underdogs Motivation: Point to prove
Eoin Brennan (EB): First, let’s rewind the clock to March of this year when it was announced that the Underdogs was set to return with a hurling focus. With the only main criteria being that the process was open to all male players who have never played for an Inter-County team in the Liam MacCarthy Cup, what was the ultimate stimulus to apply?
Cian O’Rourke (COR): To be totally honest, I left the minor panel a few years back following a falling out with management after a Munster final and for a year or two afterwards, I was fully convinced that I had made the right decision.
I kind of fell out of love with hurling completely but I was still playing for the club and saw the likes of Rory Hayes, Aron Shanagher and Aaron Cunningham at training and I was trying to train like them and be like them. So that’s when the regret hit me that I should have stayed in with the minors and put my hand up for the Under 20s so I applied for Underdogs to see if I was able to make it.
There were three questions I had for myself, could I make it through the trials, Could I make the team? And if I do can I perform? So I just wanted to test myself to see if I had of stayed on the minor panel, could I have reached this level at inter-county now?
I think it’s was a selfish reason at the start but that changes once you get into dressing room and meet the lads, then it becomes about the team.
Dan Cunnane (DC): Also mainly for selfish reasons for me as I just wanted to test myself against one of the best county teams. That was my sole aim, to see and experience the standard and pace of the game at that level and test myself one-on-one with my marker. I haven’t had much chance to get that kind of test, playing at junior last year and intermediate this year with Ogonnelloe so it was really about seeing if I could step it up against the best.
Then once I started to meet and bond with lads from all over the country, things changed to more of a collective test and I loved every minute of it. It’s just a pity that with the time of the year that it was running, we all kind of missed bits and bobs of the camps with club action but I still wouldn’t have changed a thing as I did my best for both teams.
EB: Was it the same for you Evan?
Evan McMahon (EMM): No mine was more by chance really. I work with Eibhear Quilligan so when it came up, he said ‘you should give that a lash. It could be a bit of craic anyway’. I kind of brushed it off at first but it stayed in my head for a few weeks so eventually I thought I’d apply anyway and see what happens.
But I actually didn’t finish the application form, I had the majority of it done but didn’t submit it and then Rob from the Underdogs production team rang me to tell me that and ask if I wanted to submit it. I agreed so it came more by chance really but I’m lucky now that he did come back to me.
Cillian Fennessy (CF): Like most of the lads there, at the start it would have been for selfish reasons. It just came off the back of a really tough year with Clonlara and at the start of 2022, I was regraded from senior to intermediate level which was something I didn’t want. My girlfriend made me aware of the Underdogs opportunity so I went into it really with a point to prove that I was good enough.
EB: And finally Tommy?
Tommy Barry (TB): Why did I apply? A love of hurling to be totally honest. It’s all I do really on week days and weekends going up to the field in Kilmaley pucking, using the ball wall, training myself and training young lads. Hurling and work is my life to be honest.
So one of my friends tagged me on the Underdogs post and said ‘you should give that a shot, you might be good enough for that.’
Unfortunately I didn’t make it past the second trial but then I actually got a call to come back in about five weeks before the game so I missed all the videoing and all that craic. That was good in one way as I didn’t have to deal with that aspect but disappointing in another way because I felt that if I’d gotten a better chance, I might have make a better claim for a place on the team. It was what it was and I got on with it so it was grand.
EB: That brings us on nicely to the Underdogs venture itself? Five camps along with a series of training sessions and challenge matches, all geared towards peaking for that Waterford clash at the end of October. So how would you rate the overall experience?
EMM: I thought it was unreal to be honest. At the start I was very sceptical of the whole thing but after the first game when I got to know everyone I just loved it from then on. Look, there was some stuff that was staged for the telly and you’d be looking at other people telling their sob stories but you’d actually learn a lot more about a fella just sitting down talking to them off camera.
So we all got fairly close with each other fairly quickly and there are lads there now that you’ll probably be friends with for the rest of your life to be honest. And the funny thing is that you might have only met them ten times so it was very good overall.
TB: I didn’t have the same amount of time as the rest of the lads or get to bond as much with the rest of the team-mates that were there but as an experience I thought it was great. I felt I did fairly well when I got back and got in two challenges matches and then the main game and three training sessions.
I came on against Waterford about five minutes into the second half and getting to the pitch of it was tough as I had downed tools after the last group game against Scariff in the championship.
I wasn’t fit enough to compete at that level in so little time but I feel that If I had been given a fair shot at it and kept the fitness up, maybe I could have done better when I came on. Look it was a bit of craic at the end of the day and it was a great experience.
CF: I really, really enjoyed the experience too. To be coached by the likes of John Allen, Claire O’Connor and Jamie Wall was amazing. I was lucky enough in that I got to play with the Clare Under 21’s for three years and would have been there-or-thereabouts on a senior panel but that was around 2013 when Clare won the All-Ireland.
From that level to where it’s gone to now, player’s conditioning is just on another planet. I would have thought that I was fairly fit and doing okay but you’re looking at lads of maybe 23 or 24 and saying to yourself ‘what are they doing in the gym?’. It’s almost semi-professional now because I can only imagine that the hours inter-county players are putting in the gym is just phenomenal.
EB: What about the match itself? Okay it ended up being a 2-22 to 1-8 victory for the Deise but in terms of testing yourself against inter-county opposition, what are your abiding memories?
DC: It was a very professional set-up. They put us up in a hotel the night before in Wexford, had a pre-match meal and got a coach to the match and got to stay that night after the match as well so it was eye-opening in the sense of getting a taste of what the preparations would be like for a big game at inter-county level.
CF: The match itself was a great experience, I’d say the lads will all agree that we still didn’t show as much as we could. I think the weather probably dictated a bit of that while the sending off didn’t help either but in the first half, we really, really did show what we were capable of.
At one stage it was 0-5 to 0-3 and we were really coming into the game. And if one or two things had gone our way, we might have been a little bit closer to them.
COR: I just remember the Waterford corner-back. When I saw him first, I thought this is grand as he was no bigger than me height-wise. Now he was bulkier but I just thought I’d use my pace and get away from him but he was stronger than me, faster than me and his touch was superb.
In the first ten minutes I went to try and get on a ball and my first touch wasn’t there so ball gone and chance gone. And it happened again and happened again so I just had to try and settle myself because I was thinking that after losing the first three balls my evening could be over.
Overall the scoreboard kind of flatters you when you’re on frees but I enjoyed it. There were a lot of positives and negatives from that match but the one thing I’ll say from the whole experience is that I think I grew more as a person from the camps but in terms of my development as a player, just seeing how fit that Waterford corner-back was and how sharp his touch was has made me want to better myself.
Every winter as a club player I tend to relax but this year, I wouldn’t say that there’s a fire lit in my belly but I want to improve physically. So I’ll be in the gym for the Christmas and hopefully come championship next year, I’ll see the improvements then.
EB: Did anyone else come away with learnings for themselves or their clubs? Or has it whet the appetite to try and continue at inter-county level, provided Brian Lohan was watching?
EMM: Look If the opportunity was there, obviously you’d take it one hundred per cent but I’m not sure if it whets my appetite for it. I feel that it more points you in the right direction of where you need to go as a player in order to get to that level. I mean we’re after seeing now what a Waterford team can do with probably their third team and if you’re going to aim for a county panel, you’d probably aim for that tier of a team as well because you’re not going to go straight into the panel.
So for me as a back, I look at the fella I marked who did this, this and this. I could handle this aspect but I couldn’t deal with that and need to get better at it so that’s the main thing you get out of it when playing against such a high standard team at that level.
Essentially pointers to where you need improvement because if you’re weak at something, they will exploit it, open you up and roast you.
You’ll get away with certain things at club level but at inter-county, if you have a weakness at all, they will quickly see it and seize upon it and there’s no hiding place for you in that scenario. And that’s what I loved about it to be honest.
DC: One of the main things I learned as a player was communication and organisation at midfield. We played a warm-up game against WIT and I was like a lost puppy in midfield running around the place, just trying to do everything myself whereas if I had stood in my zone, I wouldn’t have been much better. So I brought that learning into the game against Waterford and I thought I did much better.
The best factor for me to bring back to the club was the team bonding and just spending time together as a group. You learn a lot more about people by just sitting down and chatting to them but in a club scenario, you’d meet up for training and matches maybe two or three times a week but you wouldn’t chat, they’d just have a few words before and after training and go home because everyone has busy lives. So a bit more team bonding and more time together with lads would definitely bring on a club team.
TB: There’s a lot of stuff that you could take back to Kilmaley. The team bonding was definitely one, I don’t think Kilmaley do enough of that and I’m as much to blame as anyone else. I wouldn’t be drinking so after league or championship games, I wouldn’t go down to The Kilmaley Inn or into Ennis with the lads as It wouldn’t be my cup of tea but I realise now the importance of team bonding.
EB: Having admitted from the outset that you had a point to prove Cillian, did you feel that you achieved that objective?
CF: It was a great validation for me. I knew that if I got my injuries under control, I’d have a great chance. At first it was testing yourself to see could you get through the trials which were a very decent standard, then you test yourself to go higher up the pecking order in the training sessions and camps and then the last thing was to try and make your place on the team. So It was great that way for me anyway.
More than that, as I mentioned earlier I was on the initial gym panel for the Clare seniors a decade ago but as I got the chance to go to St Pat’s Drumcondra for teacher training, I was forced to make a choice.
So it was good to get closure on that as after the match I spoke to Davy [Fitzgerald] and he said that because of injuries, I wasn’t consistent in relation to injuries and that’s why I never got a call back on the panel. That was nice to hear too to realise that I had done nothing wrong essentially, it was just a succession of injuries so I was lucky that I got those right for the Underdogs at least.
EB: So that brings us to the last question of who do you feel was Clare’s best Underdog? Perhaps taking it from the base of development throughout the process or simply their performance against Waterford, if you had to, who would you opt for?
CF: This may sound like a political answer but while I’m 31 and past that inter-county call up, genuinely all the other four are as good as what’s in the county and I’m not saying that because I’m here looking at them now. You will never get anything easy off any of them so
I’ve create a great bond with them and we’re still in contact with each other on our own WhatsApp group ‘The Clare Dogs’. Looking back on Underdogs, we had the biggest representation in the country which I think is fantastic and shows where Clare hurling is at the moment.
EB: Anyone willing to peel themselves off the fence?
EMM: I’d pick Cian to be honest. He’s the only player I wouldn’t have known personally and just to see his development alone from the camp stages, he was our main man inside and everyone knew that.
COR: The one player that comes to mind is Tommy because he got told no first of all. And it’s a hard no because you have to wait around for hours and hours. On the TV show, it seemed like ten minutes but there were lads there waiting for three of four hours to go up to the room and be told of the decision.
Tommy got told no, went back to Kilmaley to play the championship and then got asked back. Imagine coming back after being initially told that you aren’t better than these 32 lads that made it? So he only had five weeks of preparation and at training he was one of the most vocal there when others were shy coming in.
In the end he was so close to making the team so he went from not being on the squad five week out from the match to becoming the first or second sub on and that was an inspiration for me because he didn’t care what other people thought, he was determined to show his worth and he did. And thank god he did because he set up my goal as well so I obviously have all the praise for him. Then you have Evan who was named to be starting on the team but didn’t for some unknown reason.
DC: I’ll echo what Cian said about Evan. He was full-back for nearly all the challenge matches and was named to be starting on the team against Waterford but didn’t so he was a bit shafted in my opinion. I know they made a big deal about Tom Stafford who was the other full-back getting his honeymoon changed for the match. Obviously someone had to lose out but I still would have had Evan on the team even if you had to rejig the team a small bit. I think while many players would have sulked, Evan held his head up high and he just encouraged all the rest of us which shows the type of character he is as well.
TB: If I had to pick anyone I’d pick Cian because he was the main man inside for the Underdogs.
With that, Zoom called an abrupt halt to this insightful reunion but it certainly won’t be their last. Oh and watch this space for future developments on the potential stepping stone that the series has presented the Banner’s five intrepid Underdogs.
