Tony Kelly and Pat Horgan renew rivalry in Munster club final

Next weekend, the paths of Tony Kelly and Patrick Horgan will cross in another final. Just over three years ago, they were major figures in the All-Ireland final, as Clare won a famous engagement.

In a few days they will renew rivalry in the AIB Munster club hurling final between Clare champions Ballyea and Cork kingpins Glen Rovers.

Both were present at a press event in Dublin and Kelly was able to react to the news, emanating from Clare, that 2013 All Star Podge Collins had decided to concentrate on hurling with the county next season after trying earlier this year to pursue a dual inter-county career by playing with the footballers, managed by his father, Colm.

“Yeah it’s a big plus. From talking to him, he just wanted to concentrate on one of them and give it his all. It is awful hard combining the two, especially the way it’s gone. When you’re training for football and training for hurling, you’re trying to give your all to both. He probably thought that he couldn’t give the energy levels or commitment to both.

“It’s massive. I know from talking to him he just wanted to concentrate on one and try and have a right good year, especially coming back from the injury he last year, the cruciate.”

Kelly finished 2013 as both Hurler of the Year and Young Hurler of the Year. The path since has been unforgiving with the county stumbling in Munster every year and not doing conspicuously better in the qualifiers.

The departure of All-Ireland winning manager David Fitzgerald – since gone to Wexford – was an awkward situation for Kelly as one of the Clare joint-captains but he said that the outgoing manager made it easy by insisting that Kelly and Cian Dillon take soundings from the panel and let him know the outcome.

Management team

“That was the thing, he didn’t want anything to get messy. He just laid out exactly, ‘Ye got back to the players, talk to them, and when ye come back to me I’ll go away and make a decision’. Everyone knew what was going on throughout the process.

“I suppose the precedent is that a lot of things have got messy in other counties but I suppose that was one thing he didn’t want to have happen in Clare – negativity or messiness to come out of the whole thing.”

The new management team of Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor have had great success with Clare at underage, including the three successive All-Ireland under-21 titles from 2012-14, all of which featured Kelly – the last time as captain.

Success this autumn with his club in winning an historic first Clare title and reaching the Munster final after defeating favourites, Thurles Sarsfields, has put him in his sixth provincial final, a stage at which Kelly has yet to lose.

Patrick Horgan’s Glen Rovers provide the opposition.

They are a heritage club in Cork, their colours worn by the legendary Christy Ring, but it is 40 years since they won Munster, on the way to a second All-Ireland club title.

They retained the county title this year, won last year for the first time since 1989.

Horgan accepted that the end of a long drought wasn’t the best launchpad for a provincial campaign.

“This year is different in that as soon as we won the Cork championship the lads had a chat afterwards that we had to give it a bit more because there’s no point in winning below if as soon as you do that you’re losing your first game,” said Horgan.

Bad championships

“ People will start saying that you’re obviously winning bad championships in Cork and that the standard isn’t that high.”

Three years ago, Horgan had the traumatic experience of apparently scoring the winner in an All-Ireland final – only for referee Brian Gavin to play an additional minute during which Domhnall O’Donovan famously equalised for Clare, allowing them a second shot at the title.

“Yeah, you try not to think about it,” he said, “because you depress yourself. You train all your life to be in situations like that, and for us we were winning the match when the time was up, so I suppose an unbelievable score from them.”

The intervening years haven’t been notably more upbeat for Cork beyond the Munster title in 2014.

Last May in Thurles they tried to dabble in the modern style, playing an extra defender against eventual champions Tipperary.

“As everyone would probably know that’s probably not the way Cork play” according to Horgan.

“We tried it and it didn’t suit. Cork are a team that play with pace, run the ball, get great scores and that is obviously something we didn’t do last year and we need to get back to that if we are going to be competitive.”