![\"Clare's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5087673_4_articleinline_TD_11287_20copy_1_.jpg\" "\\"Clare's")
Clare’s Patrick O’Connor with Barry Nash of Limerick. Pic:\u00a9INPHO\/Tommy Dickson<\/p>\nFour days to completely flip a county\u2019s mood. Four days to provide a most encouraging picture of the county\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
Before we delve into Clare\u2019s emerging U20 crop and the slightly older crop that went from emerging to arrived in the same week as the former\u2019s provincial success, 2013 All-Ireland winning Banner defender Patrick O\u2019Connor wants a word on the many thirty-somethings in Brian Lohan\u2019s panel.<\/p>\n
The narrative has been that 2026 is the last dance for the core of this Clare group, that the band will split and leave the studio upon their exit from this summer\u2019s charts.<\/p>\n
John Conlon, after all, is 37 next month. David McInerney turns 34 later this year. Tony Kelly celebrates his 33rd birthday in December. Conor Cleary celebrates the same birthday a month later. There are others with not too dissimilar birth certificates. Shane O\u2019Donnell, meanwhile, is on record stating that he\u2019ll not be around next year.<\/p>\n
The last dance narrative thus has its merits.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connor, who won an All-Ireland alongside most of the lads mentioned above, disagrees with that prevailing view.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t buy into that narrative that this is the last dance,\u201d O\u2019Connor begins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Shane O\u2019Donnell has things he wants to do professionally, and there are one or two others, but the vast majority of that team will be there next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s huge motivation in that group, and there’s a lot of loyalty to stay true to one another and to stay going for each other as long as they can. You layer that in with the guys that have quietly racked up championship appearances, Adam Hogan, Diarmuid Ryan, even Se\u00e1n Rynne has been in and around the scene for three years now, so they\u2019re all climbing up the chain inside in that dressing-room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having had to bide his time to reach first-team summer status within Lohan\u2019s camp, Rynne is enjoying a breakout championship. Last Saturday in Thurles was just his fourth championship start. The disappointment of his half-time substitution during the hammering by Limerick was maturely overcome.<\/p>\n
From 15 possessions, he produced four points from play and assisted fellow first-team newcomer Niall O\u2019Farrell. That\u2019s 0-9 across the Waterford and Tipp victories.<\/p>\n
Clare’s Patrick O’Connor with Barry Nash of Limerick. Pic:\u00a9INPHO\/Tommy Dickson<\/p>\n
Far less needs to be said about Diarmuid Stritch. In his first year out of U20 short pants, his was a sensational first championship start. Six points and four assists saw his imprint finish in double digits.<\/p>\n
\u201cStritch has the dash of x-factor, and then what I really like about Rynne is that during his time with the Clare seniors, nearly any time he has been taken off in a game, he comes back the next day with a strong performance, and he did that again in Thurles. That\u2019s a great mark of a guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
When O\u2019Connor last spoke to the Examiner, during Clare\u2019s difficult league campaign of 2025, he mentioned the inevitable rebuild that was coming down the tracks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOutside of this year, for the next two, three, and four years, we are going to be talking about a greatly changed team. We are going to have to find the spine of a new team,\u201d O\u2019Connor said in the spring of last year.<\/p>\n
That rebuild is far more promising off the back of last week\u2019s events.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the U20s to be in an All-Ireland final is great, but to be at the pitch of it every year in Munster where we\u2019ve been in three of the last four U20 finals, and they were there at minor level before that, that’s a very healthy indicator that things are in a good place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know for a fact that Brian [Lohan] is very heavily involved in not just the senior team, but from the top down, he\u2019s making sure things are going in the right direction. To be fair to Brian and Terence Fahy, all you\u2019d hear from them is that there is a lot of synergy between the two groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are guys on that U20 team that were stalwarts in the All-Ireland winning minor team of 2023, but likewise, there are guys that have come from nowhere, such as Thomas O’Connor, who wasn’t seen or heard of at minor. You need that too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I’d be very excited about with regard to the U20 team is that there is no Tony Kelly or Colm Galvin who a senior manager might feel under pressure to press into action straightaway, that these guys will be given the time and space to go and develop, and then progress on to the seniors and get that one or two years under the belt because that’s what it takes, as opposed to being fast-tracked in there when they’re not particularly ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt appears to be a fierce honest and talented group, so you\u2019d say there\u2019s a load of them who have a chance of progressing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning to more short-term matters. Clare\u2019s championship revived, possible Munster final involvement has all of a sudden shot into view. What is required at P\u00e1irc U\u00ed Chaoimh is a four-point win. It is 2019 since Clare last came off second best to Cork in the round-robin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a Munster medal was a huge motivation factor for those fellas going back this year, so I wouldn’t consider Sunday a free hit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four days to completely flip a county\u2019s mood. Four days to provide a most encouraging picture of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[177329,30041,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-459684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-championship-2026","tag-clare-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}