Clare go for a two-pronged attack

Clare's decision to field two teams in this Sunday's provincial football tournaments has underlined the county's optimism about the new season. While John Kennedy watches over the senior team against Cork IT in Munster's McGrath Cup, a second team under junior manager Michael McDermott will play Sligo in Connacht's FBD League.

There are several reasons why Clare football is particularly enthusiastic about the 2005 season. Last year ended with Kilmurry-Ibrickane winning their first Munster club title - and only the second for Clare - while the summer saw the county team make reasonable progress in the championship, and then win the Tommy Murphy Cup.

Kennedy is now determined to leave no stone unturned during the months ahead. Although he is without the Kilmurry-Ibrickane players until after their club championship run, he's been working with around 30 players, with another 30 making up a second panel.

"Obviously the main team is going into the McGrath Cup," explained Kennedy. "But we decided to put out a second team as well and Connacht agreed to let it into the FBD League. That is mostly the junior team and some players that just aren't on the senior panel at the moment, but the idea is that we might pick up a few extra players off that second panel, and I'd certainly be hoping a few of them would be good enough."

After an honest contest with Kerry in the Munster championship, Clare beat Sligo in the qualifiers before narrowly falling to Cork. For now the 2005 championship date with Waterford still seems a long way off yet Kennedy is planning for further progress.

"We got back at the end of October and we've been doing a lot of work in the gym. It's only this week we've got back on the pitch doing some stamina work, and we'll get out two nights a week for the moment.

"But we're certainly taking this first game seriously, because you'd like to win as many games as you can. Of course the first big target is the opening league match against Roscommon on the first weekend in February. But we'd like to do as well as we can in the McGrath Cup and get at least two or three games out of it. Because they will have a competitive edge, something you just won't get in challenge games.

"And we were definitely disappointed with our league performances last year where we only won two games. But then we did improve as the year went on, and winning the Tommy Murphy Cup was the high point. So I think we can build on that now. We would be hoping to at least challenge for promotion."

Waterford might be a little less enthusiastic about the new football season, but at least they now have a new manager in place. It was confirmed at last week's convention that John Kiely will succeed Billy Harty.

Kiely is well known in Waterford football circles, as the Kilrossanty club man led the county to All-Ireland junior success in 1999 and again last year. His first competitive outing will be on Sunday week when Waterford play Tralee IT in the quarter-final of the McGrath Cup.

TG4 last night launched their fourth season of the Laochra Gael series, which celebrates some of the greatest names in football and hurling of the past 50 years.

The new series opened with a profile of former Meath hero Peter McDermott, and the other footballers profiled in individual programmes in the new series are Seán Purcell, Frank McGuigan, Eoin Liston and Joe Brolly.

The hurlers profiled are Babs Keating, Justin McCarthy, John Leahy and Brian Whelahan. There will also be an episode on the Downey sisters, Angela and Ann, first broadcast as part of the camogie centenary year of 2004.