IN APRIL OF this year, two stalwarts of a club in Kildare were chewing the fat over their club’s current position in the league, and considering its overall health.
One speaker was Richard Dunne, a former player for the Clane football club who was at the coalface of their glory years in the ’90s. The other party in the conversation was Clane manager Tom Cribbin, a former teammate of Dunne’s who was previously the player-manager of the club.
Clane were once a powerhouse of Kildare football. During that fruitful decade in the ’90s, the club swept up the senior championship for four titles between 1991 and 1997. They reached the county final an additional three times in that decade where they came up short.
But after the 1998 decider against Round Towers, Clane drifted into the wilderness, never to be seen in a senior county final again until booking their place in the 2022 showpiece.
In the early stages of this season, not everyone was convinced that Clane were in the right shape to end their long wait for a shot at supremacy. They were outside favourites according to the bookies. Looking at their league form, Dunne was concerned for them yet their manager Cribbin was feeling much more optimistic.
Recalling their exchange to The42, Dunne begins:
“We were after playing in a number of league games, and we had mixed results. I questioned how things were going and his exact words were that our goal was to retain our Division 1 status in the league. We need to win five games to do that and we’ve already won four. As far I’m concerned, it’s all about the championship and we’ll be ready for August.
“And then he [Cribbin] said, ‘You know our silver jubilee team will be in Newbridge on county final day and I’m going to have this team out there with us.’ That’s a fact and what he’s done in the last three months with the team is phenomenal.”
Cribbin, who made that bold assertion, came back to take charge of his home club after banking some inter-county management experience with the Westmeath footballers. He held the top position there for three years before stepping down in 2017, and now Clane are enjoying all the benefits.
“It’s been enormous,” says Dunne.
“I know Tom well and played alongside him in the ’90s. When he came in this year, we were coming from a situation of being probably being seen as outside of the top six or eight.
“He’s put in a structure around him of top class coaches and a full team of people who have bought into it.
“It’s been a great journey and all we can say from the sideline is that you’re looking at a young bunch of players who have bought into his mantra.”
In Dunne’s days as a player, the Clane club was well represented on the Kildare team. In 1998, the year Mick O’Dwyer guided the county to the All-Ireland senior final, John Finn, Willie McCreery, Bryan Murphy, Eddie McCormack and Martin Lynch all played some part in the final against Galway.
Dunne counts eight players in total from Clane who were on that Lilywhites’ squad.
“We had a really talented bunch of players,” he continues, “and sometimes I wasn’t playing when I thought I should have been playing but there were lads on the bench, and if they were in any other club, they would have walked onto the team.”
But good club health tends to be cyclical in Gaelic Games.
Great All-Ireland-winning sides have scaled the highest mountains in their code, only to slump down the grades over successive years.
Clane suffered a somewhat similar, inexplicable fate. Dunne stresses that their regression wasn’t the fault of anyone in the club, nor were there any other major factors contributing to their setbacks. He also points out that they did reach the semi-final of the 2007 Kildare SFC but the Clane faithful, who remember their highlight years, never thought they would have to wait 24 seasons to get back in a county final.
“If someone had told me in 1998 that we wouldn’t be back for 24 years, I wouldn’t have believed them. But just typical of what can happen, you get your era and you have to take it. And then you get your not-so-good era and try to get out of it as quickly as possible.
“But it went on longer than we all expected.
“We had a situation where most of our players were coming to the end of their careers in 1998 and there was some young talent coming through. We didn’t think it would end up the way it did because we did have some very good underage teams coming up through the system and for whatever reason…. maybe some players didn’t come through the way you’d hope they’d come through.
“We did get to a county semi-final in 2007 and we would have been reaching quarter-finals of championships but coming from a position in the ’90s where you were in eight of 10 county finals to suddenly only be in quarter-finals was probably seen as a failure whereas it mightn’t be in another club.
“It’s hard to explain it but sometimes you go through a period of having a great bunch of players, and then sometimes you don’t. I wouldn’t put it down to anything the club was doing wrong.”
Naas are Clane’s opponents in today’s final [throw-in, 3.30pm], and as the defending champions in Kildare, they present a fairly sizeable obstacle for the challengers.
Interestingly, both clubs contested the first-ever Kildare SFC final in 1888, with Clane edging the tie on the unusual scoreline of 0-4 to 0-0. In more modern times, they also battled it out in the 1990 and 1991 deciders.
The end of the 2022 championship will see another chapter of their intriguing rivalry take its place in the history books. All from Cribbin’s vision.
“Naas won the county title last year,” says Dunne, “and before that, it was 1990 when they last won the championship. At that time, we were the dominant force in Kildare and they beat us. At the time, Mick O’Dwyer had taken over as Kildare manager.
“Micko’s arrival was announced at the county final and he was introduced to the supporters of Kildare at that game.
“There could have been 20,000 people there that day because there was no health and safety back then. They beat us in one of the best finals that was ever played. And the following year, we got our revenge and beat them in the final. We probably kicked on more than they did, and went on to dominate the ’90s.
Great support from all in Scoil Bhríde - THANK YOU! #PaintClaneWhite pic.twitter.com/czN61WPfW6
— Clane GAA (@ClaneGAA) October 7, 2022
“The whole community is looking forward to Sunday. You can tell from driving through the village that we have the flags and the bunting up. Everybody’s out talking about Sunday, so it’s marvellous.
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
