*Éire Óg manager, Paul Madden. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
THEY WERE CREDITED as the platform for driving better standards within Éire Óg GAA club and now the senior footballers find themselves sixty minutes away from retaining the Jack Daly.
All can change in the blink of an eye when it comes to sport, having been so close to recording a first senior double in Clare since Cratloe in 2014, Éire Óg’s hurlers suffered a heartbreaking one point defeat to Ballyea.
It means the double dream is burst but in no way has it dampened the focus of Paul Madden and the Éire Óg footballers aspiring to win back to back senior championships. It was done by Ennis Faughs in 1947 and 1948 while the Ennis Dalcassian did both a three-in-a-row and a two-in-a-row from 1909 to 1914.
Paul Madden experienced the joy of managing the Townies to Clare SFC glory last season but it was no overnight success, having felt the pain of four successive quarter-final exits. “Every club manager will tell you at the start of the year that getting to a county final is what you dream of doing, we spent enough years being knocked out in earlier stages not too dissimilar to the trajectory of the hurlers
Beating Sunday’s opponents Ennistymon in last year’s quarter-final was “a watershed moment in the belief of the group,” he admitted. “Obviously in my inner thoughts I was desperate to go a step further for two reasons, one I’m absolutely a 150 million percent an Éire Óg man whether it’s camogie, ladies football, hurling or football I always want Éire Óg to win and from that perspective I wanted to get over the quarter-final but really because I knew there was a group of players there that had the potential and that was a word that really grated with me for years in Éire Óg, the notion we had potential and it was labelled to us, potential is no good unless you achieve something with it. We had won about three or four U21 football championships in a small period of time when Kilmurry Ibrickane did that they went on and translated it to senior but there’s no guarantee the Limerick hurlers did it in the early 2000s and got nothing from it”.
Equally as important was the quarter-final extra-time loss against Doonbeg in Miltown three years ago. “We were going in having beaten Cratloe in Clondegad comfortably enough in the group, we were going in as raging hot favourites but we had ten U21s playing and a couple of guys out with injury, it isn’t an excuse because the lads stepped up on the day and did very well, it’s always about the squad. We threw that game away twice in normal time and again in extra time, I give credit to Doonbeg for their sheer determination and that’s what you get from them, walking out of there that day we decided that we would put in a big effort into winning and competing in the Senior B, the lads went off, played really good football and won that which was on before Miltown and Kilmurry Ibrickane in the county final, that gave the lads belief that albeit it Senior B that they could win in Cusack Park and that there was potential”.
Madden may be the current face of management when it comes to football in Éire Óg but the hotelier is quick to mention the “brilliant lads” involved in football in the club such as James Hanrahan, Alan Malone, Cathal Shannon, Stephen McNamara, Brian Howard Maurice Walsh, Donal Ó hÁiniféin, Pat Fitzpatrick (RIP), Eugene McNamara (RIP), “Those guys did so much and didn’t get any rewards”.
No specific work was done on psychology within the group to deal with the setbacks of years gone, instead players realised that big opportunities don’t come around every day. “There’s a serious bond between the hurlers and footballers, I know there’s a crossover, we do all our S&C work together, all our fitness together, there’s a great bond and as a collective sometimes players can realise we need to step up or it will be gone, we’ll be sitting in a pub in Ennis talking about all this potential we had. There was no need to bring in outside psychology support, half the times we’d have needed psychology for our psychologists coming in to the group, to be fair it was really driven by the lads”.
Helping this bond is the close relationship between Paul and the Éire Óg senior hurling manager, Matt Shannon who he is contact with more than some of his own football management. “I think the players feed off that, if you have a train track that splits you will bring some players one way and some players another, the whole thing will break down and if you talk to the football only lads they will say that the synergy is huge and that is really important, we feed off each other, it’s the same jersey it’s just worn by different lads occasionally”.
He continued, “Matt and I would spend a lot of time planning the business end of the year, it doesn’t just happen, our focus is in our own code but we both want what’s best for Éire Óg, it’s always about Éire Óg for me. We give and take, we argue, we give out, there’s no point denying it because it does happen at times but we always concluded what’s first and foremost important for the players, it is doable, it is hard but it’s absolutely not doable if there isn’t synergy”.
Former Limerick footballer Seanie Buckley joined as senior football coach last year, making an immediate impact. “He jelled with the players, we had a plan to implement and it took time, if you could say to anyone in a club that you will have to work hard for four to five years and you might get a breakthrough but there’s no guarantee, we got it last year, it brought us success and such is the life of a club manager or player that wins something, not too long after that it’s back to earth and into pre-season training to go again”.
Strong emphasis has been placed on defence since Buckley’s arrival. “Most of our defensive work starts at the other end of the pitch, you make it harder for other teams to come out with the ball, it really is the mantra for me and the management for years but it took a while for the penny to drop off the field with both management and players that for us you’ve to start with basics and the basics of all basics at any level in championship is you’ve to work harder than the team you’re playing and if you don’t you’re in trouble. Our final is going to represent a serious challenge in relation to that, if you listen to Mark Shanahan and I’ve seen every game they’ve played this year, one thing you’re guaranteed to get with Ennistymon is ferocious workrate, it’s going to be a battle”.
Despite this approach, the amount of scores conceded is rarely a discussion point in team meetings, the owner of The Temple Gate Hotel said. “You won’t win a game if you concede more than you score that’s the nature of it. Workrate is something brought up in January when we go to the gym, in February when we start on the pitch, in league games, at half-time and water breaks, it’s always brought up. Someone said last year they were delighted we got over the line because we’ve worked so hard to get over the line, I know lots of people in lots of clubs who have worked their backsides off and they’ve got nothing, working hard doesn’t guarantee success but if you don’t work hard it will certainly guarantee failure, that’s the mantra”.
For Sunday’s battle, they wear the favourites tag. “We’ll focus on ourselves, one snippet I’ve noticed in the last few weeks is that Ennistymon have gone in against favourites in at least two if not three of their rounds so far this year, they’ve beat St Breckan’s in a quarter-final and rightfully so, they beat Kilmurry Ibrickane who are always in the mix to contend and win championships, they beat both of those, playing favourites isn’t going to phase Ennistymon, they have the same mindset going into the county final against Éire Óg as they did for the two previous rounds. For us, up until winning last year we were never favourites, we were a team with potential who on any given day could turn up. Our mindset has had to vary this year, we’ve been favourites every year we’ve gone into it, albeit marginal favourites, I don’t think it’s affected the way we’ve approached games, subconsciously the players will know that we’re county champions and we’re going to be favourites. Once the ball is thrown in, all that nonsense goes out the window and it’s about the game”.
More players have tasted championship action this year under Madden with Oran Cahill, Niall O’Donohue, Gavin D’Auria, Dean D’Auria and Ultan Sheils all making appearances from the bench. “You’ve got to trust lads, if they go well and are working hard at training and in an environment where competition, hard work and ferocity is key at training then when it comes to the day of a game there’s no point them sitting up behind you, you’ve got to use them, no one is used off the bench in Éire Óg for sympathy I can guarantee that, they are used to add to what we have on the pitch whether it’s replacing an injured player or for a different style, they are used to add to it, if they can’t add to it then they don’t play, I can assure you that we have five or six lads that haven’t played much this year, we’ve five or six lads that haven’t played and some guys who’ve only played a little and they’re furious and want to play, that is what you want”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo ahead of the county hurling final, the discussion drifted to the possibility of a double. “In ten days time we’ll be a lot wiser, there’s two monstrous challenges because nobody will hand you anything, if we were to win the double there’s no question that it would be fantastic for Éire Óg and the future of the kids coming up because they’ll always have something to aspire to and look at. We’d take it today before a game is played that if our lads go out and represent the club at their utmost in hurling this Sunday and football the following Sunday then we can’t ask anymore of the lads, we’re very proud of what they’ve done for us, we absolutely trust that they’ll give it their all, if they do that and we win one, two or none then we’ll be proud of their efforts”.
Looking towards the future, he reflects back on the lift their breakthrough last year had on the next generation. “The real thing that pleased me the most was the players and football squad conducted themselves so well off the field, they gave time to the kids in the academies, in the schools and the parents, that was hugely important for me, I was quite firm about that, winning the game was superb but we needed to use that to build and you can see it this year in the academy numbers. I’d be fairly certain that Oran Cahill and Jarlath Collins were two of our first products from the Academy that are now playing senior, I remember the day they came up at U6 or U7, there’s more of them in the group there now, the significance out of winning the senior games last year was monstrous. On the field, I’m convinced that we’ve won games this year in both codes on the back of the fact that we suddenly believed we were good enough to win games”.
That belief must be evident in every sequence of play on Sunday to ensure that back to back titles are secured.
