HE KNOWS IT sounds all a bit Huckleberry Finn, but when John Conlon casts his mind back to the summer, he thinks of two dozen lads in the River Shannon, just on the edge of the Clonlara GAA club premises, recovering from tough training sessions, splashing each other and singing songs, dreaming of winning a Clare championship; one that arrived on Sunday with victory over Crusheen.
To those passing over the stretch of canal on the Doonass Footbridge to Castleconnell in those moments, they must have shook their heads at the noise and giddiness of it all.
Newly crowned champions are afforded the time and space to weave their own stories about how the county was conquered, but there’s something seductive about Conlon’s account.
“One night there was a real special moment in that river when it felt that everything was right. So much craic and fun, lads in the river splashing about and laughing, singing,” he recalls.
“Those are the moments that you look back on at the end of the year and you have won the competition and bridged a gap. It’s those kind of moments. And when you are on the field of play, you are going to work harder and you are going to pick up your team mates.
“You are going for that hook or that block and that’s what you are priding yourself on. It’s something that might not have been in the Clonlara psyche and the Clonlara dressing room for a long time; that unbelievable workrate. There was nearly more of a thrill in getting the hook or the block that actually getting a score.”
After winning the Clare title as a 19-year-old, Conlon celebrated as any teenager would. In recent years though, that feeling never felt as far away. Winning three consecutive Senior B titles might have felt like progress to some, but all it did to the realists in the group was remind them how they couldn’t gain entry into the competition proper.
Manager Donal Madden brought in Nollaig O’Sullivan, a performance psychologist, to assist in the preparations. Her name was invoked in the post-match celebrations. What did she bring to the mood?
“Just being calm in the moment. You see it with all teams now, the mind is so powerful,” explains Conlon.
“We had such a young team and to get everyone in the collective bunch to just be on the same hymn sheet in matches when it is a difficult moment.
“For example, Crusheen yesterday when they scored the goal, it was about saying the right things to get us through the moment, getting back down the field to get the next score.
“Maybe in years gone by, previous years, we would have panicked in that moment and made a poor decision.”
With Limerick placing so much faith in Caroline Currid, the assistance of sports psychologists is becoming commonplace at club level. The upturn in Clonlara fortunes was stark.
“We have been through a lot of hardship in terms of getting to finals and semi finals. We lost three county finals, one after a replay. And then a lot of the times when we lost the semi finals, the team that beat us often went on to win the title as well,” Conlon lays out.
“In the last few years we won three Senior B’s in a row. It became something that people were making fun out of and joke about. Nobody wants to be winning them. You are only in them because you didn’t get through to the Senior championship.
“But, a lot of lads were getting game time in those games all the same. Now we look back and see it as maybe a good thing for the young players to win something at senior level and develop themselves as senior hurlers.”
The good news for Conlon is just how young the age profile is now. Captain Jathan McMahon is just 23, for example and one of a crew of lads that won the club’s first county title at minor ‘A’ level a few years back.
“To see the camaraderie and the friendships they have, they are really inclusive so we all bought into it.
“Everyone just bonded really well and if one of the lads said they were going for breakfast after training, you could have 20 lads there,” said Conlon.
He added, “I suppose when we won in 2008, I was only 19. Lads that age, I suppose with the age profile we have at the moment, you weren’t taking it in as much back then.
The lads arriving home!
— Barry O’Connell (@BarryOC_) October 22, 2023
Hon Clonlara 💛🖤💛🖤 pic.twitter.com/Ch3WURrp0v
“We walked into the parish last night and the atmosphere around the place, I just stood back and took it all in. Even last night, just embraced and enjoyed it more. We were meeting people from the team that won it in 2008, and to see the delight on everyone’s face, it was just super to see. It’s something I will cherish and think about after a wait of 15 years.”
Clonlara will play the Tipperary champions now on the weekend of 18/19 November.
