Messages

[Injury forces All-Ireland hero Lynch to call time on Banner career]

Colin Lynch has called it a day.
A super hurler who epitomised everything that there was about the Clare team in the late 90s, fitness, determination and with no shortage of skill.
Himself & Ollie Baker were a powerhouse in midfield and it's hard to believe that Lynch has only 1 all-Ireland medal
A great servant to Clare hurling (and also a very good footballer), and I wish hime the best on his retirement



Injury forces All-Ireland hero Lynch to call time on Banner career

Clare midfielder Colin Lynch has been forced to concede that his time as an inter-county hurler is over.
There was much speculation in Clare over the weekend that Lynch would not be in a position to hurl on with Care in 2009 because of a persistent back injury.
He held off on confirmation of that until he paid a visit to a specialist in Dublin yesterday and came to the conclusion that involvement with his county would be beyond him in 2009.
Accordingly the 34-year-old has brought the curtain down on an inter-county career that spanned 12 championship seasons.
"I suffered a back injury six weeks ago at training, I have missed too much time and it would not be possible to to be ready for a Munster championship at this stage," said Lynch yesterday.
"I had been following a personal training programme with (physio) Gerard Hartmann since November so I am disappointed it has come to this but, given the circumstances, it is the right decision," he added.
Lynch's departure means that Niall Gilligan is now the only survivor from Clare's last All-Ireland hurling title success in 1997. Gilligan himself had considered retirement towards the end of last year before re-committing.
Lynch was one of the most forceful and energetic midfielders of his day and forged a strong partnership with Ollie Baker towards the end of the 1990s.
He was controversially banned for three months in the summer of 1998 for incidents at the beginning of the Munster final replay against Waterford, a penalty that enraged the then manager Ger Loughnane and which would go on to dominate the summer's GAA headlines.
Among his better moments was his winning point late in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway in 2002.
Lynch made his inter-county debut in 1997 but he had been part of the training squad in late '94, when Loughnane took over, before illness forced him out of the plans.
He hopes to be back playing for his club in time for the local championship, which starts next month. Clare are not due out in the Munster championship until mid-June when they face Cork or Tipperary in a semi-final.

Here is another rant from Gerlock this week, giving out about Clare county board this time

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Loughnane fears Armageddon for Clare GAA

Ger Loughnane
12 December 2008


Ger Loughnane believes that "Armageddon" looms for Clare GAA if Cusack Park is deemed unsafe for health and safety reasons.

The former Galway hurling manager's comments come in light of the collapse of the Clare County Board's move to sell the Ennis venue and their abandoned proposal plans to construct a new stadium on the Quin Road of the town.

"I see a massive problem facing the Clare County Board," Loughnane told the Clare Champion newspaper last week.

"I hate to say this because it's really Armageddon for Clare. If Cusack Park, because of the rust in so much of the iron works, if it is declared a health hazard, if it is declared unsafe, what are the County Board going to do? Where is the money going to come from?"

"It could actually be closed down. Now that's apart from the objections that Aldi and Tesco will have about first of all having matches in it and secondly about its development," he added.

The Feakle clubman also indicated that the would-be crisis could see a number of Clare's top officials resigning from their positions, including county secretary Pat Fitzgerald, who he has great admiration for.

"It is a very, very precarious stage for Clare," Loughnane stressed. "Will Pat Fitz stay on as county secretary? If he doesn't stay on as county secretary, who's going to take it up? How are they going to raise the money to develop Cusack Park? There are huge, huge problems facing the county. They put all their eggs in the one basket of this 84 million euro (project). I always thought that was absolutely crazy and I said that from the very start," he stated.

Loughnane suggested that the sale of a plot of land beside Cusack Park to Aldi earlier in the decade was under the going rate at the time, and has pointed the finger towards Fitzgerald and former chairman Fr Michael McNamara.

The Banner County native cites the underselling of the site as the initial cause for Clare's current problems, saying: "the rot started at that stage (when Fr McNamara had left the post of chairman) using that money to but Tulla, without having any vision of what Tulla was about."

Saw the ad and yielded to the power of advertising

meeting 19 year old Helga from Sweden this Thursday night,
says she wants to be a model and is all alone in Dublin and looking for friends....
she even sent me a picture of her when she posed for a lingerie shoot
must say I'm looking forward to it.....

End of era as Lohan calls time on career (Irish Independent)

The last remaining member of Clare's ground-breaking 1995 All-Ireland winning team has retired with Frank Lohan confirming he's hanging up his boots.

And Niall Gilligan admitted yesterday that he is thinking about following Lohan into retirement.

Lohan's retirement now means that not one of the 1995 team will figure in Clare's hurling squad in 2009. Lohan (33) said it was always his intention to walk away at the end of 2008 and admitted he would have done it 12 months ago if 2007 had been better.

He was captain then in a turbulent year that saw manager Tony Considine clash with the County Board over a range of issues and at odds with Davy Fitzgerald over training schedules.

"I'm glad I came back for 2008 because the previous year had gone to so bad," said Lohan. "We recovered ground this year. We were disappointed with the way we played against Tipperary in the Munster final and we felt we should have beaten Cork but at least our stock is higher than it was."

Gilligan says he has no firm decision made yet but thinks the commitment to 2009 is something he may not be able to deliver.

"My mind isn't made up completely yet but I'm thinking that way," he said.

Bit surprised Ronan Curran wasn't on the list ahead of O'halpin or Gardiner, but anyways don't think Cork will get any in half-back line

1 PJ Ryan KK
2 Kavanagh KK
3 Hickey KK
4 Tyrrell KK
5 Walsh KK
6 O'Mahony TIPP
7 Delaney KK
8 McGrath TIPP
9 Fitzpatrick KK
10 Larkin KK
11 Callinan TIPP
12 O' Connor CORK
13 Brennan KK
14 Canning GAL
15 Mullane WD

Those that were close:
Henry Shefflin, Derek Lynge - Kilkenny
Paul Curran -Tipperary
Tony Browne -Waterford
Colin Lynch -Clare

This is probably one of the easiest years to pick an all-star team, but as always you can never have 100% agreement.

How you can pick Donal Og is beyond me. He managed to get himself sent off against Galway and was quite poor with the 2 goals Clare scored against him. Just because he gave a good speech at half time does not merit an all-star. Would have picked PJ Ryan here.

Full & Half back lines I am in agreement with. (Ronan Curran came close though)

Possibly could have gone with Derek Lynge in midfield, but I don't really have any complaints against Fitzpatrick or McGrath.

Eoin Larkin is a shoe in (+ a favourite for player of year). Seamus Callinan is justified and I'm not too sure if I'd have picked Shefflin ahead of Ben O'Connor. O'Connor was outstanding all year for Cork and was the main reason they beat Galway & Clare when the chips were down and he also had a good game against Kilkenny. Then again, Shefflin was impeccable as ever from frees and his overall awareness and contribution is immense so it would be difficult to leave him off.

Glad that you included John Mullane instead of Eoin Kelly. Mullane had an excellent year and was consistantly good in ALL of Waterfords games. Why a lot of experts have chosen Eoin Kelly ahead of him I don't know. Kelly was "apparently injured" for the Clare game, and from play was no where near as effective as Mullane and was really shown up in the final when he was tried in a number of positions. Brennan & Canning were automatics for the other 2 slots.

so what is this witty picture & caption Tony ?

It was a tough decision for man of the match, but thats what the analysts are paid for.
There were some very strong contenders with Eddie Brennan, Eoin Larkin, Derek Lynge, JJ Delaney & Noel Hickey my pick of the lot.
Personally I would have given it to Brennan, but had any of the others (from entire Kilkenny team) been selected there wouldn't have been too many complaints.
It really was a cop-out from the sunday game

I agree with neilthemac, it is a bad call by Galway.
Loughnane has been there 2 years and Galway have made no progress at all. Were it not for Joe Canning, they could have been well hammered by Cork and I don't think Ger Lough can take the credit for Joe.
Loughnane has tried to get Galway to play like the Clare teams of the last few years and it just hasn't worked. After 2 years in charge, Galway still do not have an established full-back, midfield or centre-forward. When he took over Clare he inherited some excellent players in Lohan, McMahon, Daly, Doyle, Jamsie & Ger O'Loughlin.
I really think that Galway should have cut their losses and gone for someone else. Then again, if they play in Leinster next year it could well propel them onto something better

It was in the old gaelic grounds alright, and as far as I can remember Tipp won that game, and Clare had a pretty good football team between 1991-97.
(was actually at the game but the memory is not what it used to be...I blame buckfast)

I could be wrong but is that when Leahy tore his cruciate ?

Hard to see anything but a victory here for the "Animals". Their full back line has been a bit shaky, but their half-backs & midfiled are very solid and they have a way more scoring forwards than Cork.
Declan O'Sullivan was badly missed in Munster final (so was Galvin), and I expect him to have a good game on Sunday. Dara O'Sé won't have been too happy with his battle with O'Neill the last day and I would expect him to at least break even this time around.
The fact Cork looked very pedestrian against Kildare will probably suit them, rather than winning by a big margin. They know they will need to improve and they are well capable of scoring points. For Cork to win they need to score at least 2 goals, but apart from Cussan, I'm not too sure if they have someone who can get them.
Should be a high scoring game

Regardless of the Paul Galvin case but this is an absolutely ridiculous rule.
To stop a person from training is just absurd.
I don't know if this is the case in soccer or rugby but I'd be very surprised if it was.

Seeing that he is suspended from "functions" within the GAA, what would happen if he was employed by the GAA as a coach or something else. Would his suspension carry onto his employment, surely the european/Irish labour laws would have something to say about it then.

From watching it on TV last night in slow motion I still wasn't sure whether the ball was pucked from outside the box. Certainly he had one foot inside and one foot outside, and of course after striking his momentum carried him a further yard or 2 onwards.

How the umpire could be correct is questionable, and to make such a massive call 3 minutes into injury time with both teams level after what was an excellant and very sporting game, was indeed either a very courageos or crazy solution.

To fix this in the future, maybe to force all puckouts to be taken from the ground (like a free).

As a Clare man, I was devastated to lose in the manner we did last night.
First off it was a brilliant game that could have gone either way, in front of a big crowd with a great atmosphere. There was no big tension in the crowd despite what some people are saying, and while the game itself was very competitive and tough, it was quite a sporting contest. The referee did have a poor game, but he's not the first referee to have a poor one.

The decision by the umpire at the end was just absolutely ridiculous, he must have got some sort of power complex. It was a marginal enough call, and to make it 3 minutes into extra time with the sides level was incredible.
From what I could see, was that Tipp got an excellent point to equalise, then the Clare goalie started roaring at umpire for a ball for a quick puckout, and then that umpire judged the goalie to have passed the small square during the puckout. Whether he did this as a result of what the goalie said to him, or believed it a genuine call, only he can say.

I believe the referee himself realised this and gave Clare a soft enough free around half-way to equalise, and played an extra 3 minutes to allow another chance of an equaliser, which did not happen.
The reaction of some of the Clare crowd afterwards was both very wrong and disrespectful and has no place in GAA. As for a replay, this is not an option in my view.
For Tipperary, Seamus Callinan gave an exihibition of forward play and Seamus Hennessy was outstanding in midfield. Best of luck to them in the All-Ireland series.

P.S. Very disappointed by Clare fans who booed the winning speech, but also felt it was very poor form by Tipperary captain to make a point of thanking the referee at the start of his speech.

Very surprised you left Fitzgerald out of the candidates. I now he didn't play last year (and most likely his own fault), but chances are we will see him in action this year.
I would still give Fitzhenry the no.1 spot followed closely by Fitzgerald and then Cummins a bit further back.
As much as I dislike Donal Og, I'd have to give him the no.4 for the way he has improved his game over the past few years and if he keeps going the way he is he'll be pushing for no.1 pretty soon.

Like everone else I thought McGarry didn't get the credit he deserved, and this was due to the excellence of the cats defence. However, I think he was badly shown up when he left in 5 against Galway, and hasn't really recoveredd since.