David Reidy wouldn’t change much about hurling but, if the Clare attacker could tweak one thing, it would probably be the numbers on the pitch.
“I went to Boston in 2015 and it was 13-a-side out there,” said the Allianz League finalist. “I was playing corner-forward and as a corner-forward you’d always be looking for less on the field to create more space. That’s probably the only thing that I’d suggest in that sense.”
It’s a nice idea, for the forwards at least, but boss Brian Lohan mightn’t fancy reducing his playing numbers given all the talent at his disposal.
With an embarrassment of options, he’s already used a whopping 34 different players this season on the journey to the Division 1 final. And that’s without Shane O’Donnell or Tony Kelly who still haven’t featured yet in 2024. We haven’t seen David McInerney since the Round 2 defeat of Waterford either.
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Despite those missing men, and the high level of experimentation – no Clare player has started all of their league games this term – they’re still the only unbeaten team in the top flight.
All of which suggests that this could be one of the strongest panels Clare have assembled in some time.
“If you look back right from the start of the league, we have used quite a number of players, a lot of new younger lads as well,” said Reidy.
“You look at the list of the lads who have broken on to the team and who have given impressive displays since the start of the Allianz League, it’s great. On Saturday, you can be sure that there’ll be another player or two who will put up their hands to claim a jersey for the game after.”
That “game after” is about as big as it gets, a Munster championship opener against Limerick in Ennis. That imposing fixture has the potential to distract attention from the pursuit of silverware this weekend though Reidy isn’t concerned.
Similarly, he rejected the suggestion that seeing Limerick lose their league semi-final on a Saturday evening made it more appetising for Clare to beat Tipperary the following day. With Limerick out of the league picture, back-to-back ties against the Shannonsiders across three weekends was off the table.
“No, look, Limerick were going to do what they were going to do and Kilkenny were going to do what they were going to do,” said Reidy. “We didn’t focus on that other semi-final whatsoever. We just had Tipp in our minds and gave it all against Tipp.”
As Reidy also noted, Clare aren’t in a position to prioritise competitions or to turn their noses up at silverware. He is on the panel a decade now and has just one significant medal to his name, from the 2016 league.
“You play at the highest level you can to try to win,” he said.
“If you don’t win, you just have to look back and ask yourself did you do everything to get you to the pinnacle? In a team aspect, did you do everything to try to get us there? If we can answer yes then we can’t have any regrets really. We just have to take it on the chin.”
It remains to be seen if fellow forward O’Donnell is included this weekend. Skipping the league to be fully fit and focused on the championship hasn’t harmed him in recent seasons. Kelly hasn’t played this year either though his situation is linked to an ankle injury which required surgery last December.
“He’s on the road to recovery,” said Reidy of Kelly. “Hopefully he’ll be back, in a couple of weeks’ time.”
In the meantime, Clare will hope to extend their unbeaten record and to continue their habit of winning tight games. Take the eight-point semi-final defeat of Tipperary out of it and there was no more than a single score in it for each of their group games.
“You can look at that two ways, you can take the positives that you’re winning close games and then you can look at it and say, ‘Why can’t you finish off stronger to create that larger gap in the scoreline?’” said Reidy.
“We’ll definitely take the positives and we’ll take the learnings of, ‘How do we go about finishing games stronger when we’re in a positive position?’ There’s always a learning curve between new players coming in, the rest of the squad and then management as well.”
