Donal Óg Cusack to continue on as Clare coach as managers are ratified

There was white smoke in Clare on Tuesday night as Donal Moloney and Gerry O'Connor were confirmed as the county's new senior hurling managers.

The duo were ratified at a county board meeting, along with Colm Collins who will continue as the county's senior football manager after earning promotion to Division Two and reaching a first ever All-Ireland quarter-final this year.

Moloney and O'Connor's confirmation has been a forgone conclusion since Anthony Daly pulled out of the running over the weekend.

The duo led the county to three successive All-Ireland Under-21 titles from 2012 to 2014.

They told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland that the popular Donal Óg Cusack will remain a part of the management team, having joined outgoing manager Davy Fitzgerald’s ticket ahead of this year’s campaign.

While Limerick native Liam Cronin, instrumental in Ard Scoil Rís' recent Harty Cup successes, and current strength and conditioning coach Kelvin Harold will also be involved.

“He has a lot of experience from last year, working with the seniors, working with Davy,” Moloney said of Óg Cusack on Wednesday morning.

“He has a profound impact on the skill sets of some of the players. He brought a different perspective to the table when Davy brought him in last year.

“From speaking to some of the players, I think he has had a significant impact on helping them better themselves and that’s essentially the value that we saw that Donal would bring to the table.

“It helps that we are able to cut through stuff a little bit quicker. We communicate quite a lot and we’re generally of the same mind and the same philosophy. So it works.

“We work off the philosophy that we are a management team and anyone who comes in around us or has worked with us in the recent past would acknowledge and the guys that will come in to work with us again will find that they are an extension of that management team.”