Jamesie O’Connor has backed Clare to regain their All-Ireland title, four years after they last did so, 20 years after he was their match-winning hero in the 1997 final.
Despite being fifth favourites for the Championship, after a mediocre League season where the retention of their division 1A status relied upon a relegation play-off victory over Dublin, O’Connor considers his county’s summer prospects to be positive.
And it’s easy to see why. Limerick, their opponents in Sunday’s Munster SHC semi-final, are nowhere near as strong as they were in 2013, the last season they won a provincial title. More pressingly, whoever wins on Sunday is not just guaranteed a place in the Munster final but also entry to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
“This is a glorious opportunity for us,” O’Connor, the former hurler of the year, said. “Yet we can’t be complacent. As a player, I appeared in six Munster finals but the county’s recent record in the Munster Championship is deplorable. The reality is we haven’t been good enough since 2013 but there is no excuse now.
“Limerick are clearly in transition, so this is an absolute must-win game for Clare. Should we get the victory, the whole season opens up for us. You do not want to be in the [All-Ireland] qualifiers. For Clare it has to be route one this year.”
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Yet in 2013, it was via the qualifiers that Clare emerged to secure the unlikeliest of All-Irelands, albeit one that came with an asterisk attached. En route to success, they avoided Kilkenny and Tipperary. “The cards fell nicely for us that year,” O’Connor said. “And they need to do so again this year. Could Clare beat three or four big guns on the way to winning an All-Ireland? I don’t think so but we could be dark horses, especially if we can get Tony Kelly, Conor McGrath and Shane O’Donnell back to the form they had four years ago. We have the type of forwards to win big matches.”
And yet since 2013 they haven’t won those key games. That young team, who excitedly won an All-Ireland playing a radically different style of hurling, have been unimpressive ever since.
“We haven’t built on that success and I think the style that Davy (Fitzgerald, the previous Clare manager) was playing, didn’t suit us. When you play with a sweeper, you blunt the sharpest tools that you have, and allow the opposition the luxury of having an extra defender. Teams had figured Clare out.
“And yet, these guys remain an ambitious bunch of players, accustomed to success. It hurts Clare that their record in Munster is what it is and that they haven’t returned to Croke Park since 2013. The clock is ticking, too. They aren’t a young team anymore.”
They remain a good one, though, albeit a side with questions surrounding their ability to compete in a physically imposing setting.
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“If you rewind to 12 months ago, there were massive question marks about Tipperary heading into last year’s Championship. People were wondering if Michael Breen and Dan McCormack were good enough?
“Ultimately Tipp emphatically answered all those questions. They played with real aggression. And it worked for them.
“When you play with a sweeper, you blunt the sharpest tools that you have
“It’s a definite concern that Clare haven’t found an Eoin Larkin or a ball winner in the half-forward line. It is up to the management to find a way to get their best 15 players on the field, and get enough ball into O’Donnell and McGrath, the guys who can potentially hurt opposition in the danger areas. We’re not the biggest team but that doesn’t stop you playing with aggression, and doesn’t stop you bringing the same work-rate that Tipp brought last season.”
Additionally, the low-key build-up to the season has helped them, O’Connor argues. “The Clare lads will put enough pressure on themselves, if you’re an ambitious young man, and there’s plenty of those in the Clare dressing-room, you have to be thinking ‘the clock is ticking on my career, we have a window here that’s closing and we need to be getting to a Munster final and getting back to Croke Park’.
“And I’d be surprised if Clare aren’t in the Munster final. They will beat Limerick this weekend.”