*Alan Sweeney charges out of the Clare defence. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
THERE remains a strong tinge of regret among Clare’s senior footballers that they didn’t do themselves justice in the 2023 Munster Final against Kerry, this weekend they have an opportunity to make amends.
Granted there is a huge turnover in the pool of players wearing saffron and blue in TUS Gaelic Grounds last May and that which will take to the field in Cusack Park on Sunday for the provincial decider.
Alan Sweeney was part of the Clare panel last season, while he didn’t game time in the 5-14 0-15 loss to Kerry, he is among those determined that the county will give a better account of itself in the Munster Final.
He explained, “There’s a great buzz inside in training, there is a good bounce there, as a group we’re really looking forward to it, a lot of this group was there last year, on the day we felt we didn’t do ourselves justice, we’re really trying to knuckle down and the boys are putting a good game plan together, we’re working hard at every training session to try get the little things right”.
Wing back Sweeney told The Clare Echo, “We felt we didn’t do ourselves justice, hopefully we have learned, we’ll see on Sunday but it is the added bonus of having the final in Cusack Park which is extra special, there is no one in living memory that remembers Clare playing a Munster final in Cusack Park, it is very important though from our point of view that we don’t get caught up in the occasion but I don’t think that will be an issue, a lot of us were there last year, we experienced it, we’re going to play a game and we’re really looking forward to it”.
Clare’s players wouldn’t be giving the commitment required to inter-county unless they believed they were could enough to win silverware, Sweeney insisted. “You’re meeting boys on the outside and you’re chatting about this and that, we wouldn’t be here unless we believed, why would you travel down to road forty minutes every night if we didn’t believe we could beat Kerry, obviously from the outside everyone will have their opinions but that is fine, there’s no better place to do it than Cusack Park with all our friends, family and club players supporting us, that is what we’re striving for”.
Testing themselves against one of the top teams in the country in Ennis is an occasion to savour, the Doolin man outlined. “There was a lot of talk at the start of the year about the lads that stepped away and of course some lads we’d have soldiered with for a couple of years but we’ve shown through the league that there’s plenty of different leaders there that have stood up at different times and we’re going to need new leaders to step up on Sunday, there’s going to be lads getting jobs marking some of the best forwards in the game but that is why we train and why we do it, you want to be playing against these lads and no better place to do it than our own backyard with a big Clare crowd in there”.
He continued, “We were happy enough with our league campaign, we went to Down for the final day and a couple of things didn’t go our way so we went back to the drawing board, we went down to Waterford, they had a fantastic win over Tipperary and we know that a lot of those Tipp boys have a Munster medal which we don’t have, that is what we’re trying to achieve next Sunday, we went down and got the win, preparation has been excellent since, lads are fighting for positions for the matchday twenty six, for the first fifteen and for the five subs to be on the field to finish it”.
A greenkeeper at Lahinch Golf Club, one of his colleagues is former Clare captain Alan Clohessy who led the county into battle for the 2012 Munster Final against Cork. “It’s non-stop football at the golf club with all the boys there, thankfully it’s Clare at the minute but when the club championship starts it will get kind of hairy, there’s a couple of lads still playing but I’m more working with the Ennistymon boys, it can get tense”.
Added to the county senior panel in 2017 alongside Cillian Brennan and Darragh Bohannon, Sweeney is able to recall advice from his colleague Clohessy on appreciating your time at inter-county level. “I had one or two years done and he said ‘you’ll have seven or eight done and you won’t know it’, here we are and you have to enjoy these, the time and effort that goes into these it is impossible to say it will last forever, every year takes on its own story commitment wise, we have to give it everything and it really is very enjoyable”.
At U21 level, Alan was centre forward on the Clare side beaten by Kerry in the Munster quarter-final 1-17 2-8 in 2017. He recalled, “we lost to them by six points in the U21 down in Austin Stack Park, the same Kerry team was stacked with all the boys that are there now, we’ve a lot of boys who played Sigerson with them inside in UL and NUIG, they will tell you themselves we’ve players that are every bit as good, it is just about getting it out on the field, that is the plan for next Sunday”.
Current panellists, Éinne O’Connor, Cillian Brennan, Darren Nagle and Darragh Bohannon were also on that U21 side along with ex squad members Keelan Sexton, Killian Roche, Cian O’Dea and Seán O’Donoghue.
Centre back on the St Breckan’s side which contested last year’s Clare SFC final, clarity is sought on where exactly Alan is from is quickly put to bed. “If my father heard I was from Lisdoonvarna, there would be a riot in the stand I’d say. Strictly Doolin but things are going grand up there at the minute so we won’t go splitting it at the minute”.
His father Pat is one of Alan’s strongest supporters at club and county level. “It’s like all our fathers, they’re very passionate, we’ve a core group that follow us all over the country, Clare football wouldn’t be known for having the biggest following in the world but we have a core group that follow us all over the country, we’ve league games every year in Northern Ireland and we’ve a couple of hundred that will go there and they are as passionate as everyone, we’re hoping to make them all proud next Sunday and everyone else that comes along”.
For seven of his eight seasons at inter-county, Alan had Colm Collins as his manager, Mark Fitzgerald has brought a freshness to the role, he said. “Everyone and anyone that was part of Colm Collins’ set up has nothing but admiration for what he did and the belief he put into us as a group. Mark straight away brought a bit of freshness and straight away you get a kick out of a group when you do that, another thing is we spoke about the lads that stepped away that were a massive core of this group but we’ve a lot of young lads brought in and young lads breed freedom, they don’t tend to be scared of anything, the boys put a gameplan together, we’ve trained really hard and we’ve taken it one game at a time for the league, we got all the way to Newry and if we won that we’d have got to a league final and got promoted so the biggest thing he brought is the freshness and the young lads, young lads would do anything for you, they’ll train and do anything you ask of them because they don’t know anything different”.
Another change during his time on the panel has been the rising amount of St Breckan’s players involved. The count is now at five with Joe McGann, Jamie Stack, Cian Burke and Tristan O’Callaghan joining him. “There’s an added incentive of getting your own lads in. I was the only one from my club for a very long time, they were all asking me at the start ‘you’re mad going in, why are you doing it’ but when you get in and get a feel for it you don’t want to leave, you make great friends through inter-county, it is a great lifestyle you train hard and then you go around the country competing with some of the best teams in Ireland, what more do you want and what other place do you want to be in next Sunday than Cusack Park in a dogfight”.
