By Cian O'Connell

Patrick O’Connor grew up playing for Tubber, but attended secondary school nine kilometres away in Gort. It was a familiar path for hurlers from the area. While Galway and Clare’s rivalry is 'different' it still matters deeply.

O’Connor is a key figure within the Clare set-up and is encouraged by how Gerry O’Connor and Donal Maloney’s charges have flared to prominence once more during an epic hurling summer.

This is O’Connor’s eighth year on the inter-county beat with Clare. Good and bad days have been enjoyed and endured, but facing Galway makes life especially interesting around Tubber.

“It is a bit different from the Limerick and Clare rivalry,” O’Connor explains. “The Limerick and Clare rivalry is ingrained in us down the years, but there is a bit more of a banter element to the Galway and Clare rivalry.

“There isn't that much bitterness or there is no club overlap. It has been great craic already. I went to school in Gort, I hurled with a good share of those Galway lads.

“I hurled with Johnny Glynn, Conor Cooney, Niall Donoghue, God Rest his Soul, Richie Cummins, James Regan, guys who were knocking around the panel a couple of years ago. Then I would have got to know more Galway lads so around my area it is very special. In a lot of houses at home you'd have a Clare flag on one pillar and a Galway flag on the other.

“Maybe the husband is Clare and the wife is Galway or vice versa. It is good natured, good banter, we are looking forward to next weekend.”

Three Connacht Colleges Senior A Hurling medals were collected by O’Connor while attending Gort Community School. “We won five consecutive, I was captain of the team that won fifth, and I was on the team that won the third, fourth, and fifth,” O’Connor recalls.

“That time you were straight into an All Ireland Semi-Final, we got a few awful hammerings off a couple of teams. In our final year we lost to Good Counsel by a point, that was as close as Gort got to getting into the Croke Cup Final with that team.

“When I was growing up I had far more knowledge of Galway underage hurling and Galway teams because that is where I was playing in school. My circle of friends would have been around the Gort area. So it is only when you started playing underage with Clare that you started to get to know the Clare lads a bit more.”

The Christmas period usually offers a chance to meet up with his school pals and O’Connor relishes that spell. “Hurling is so time consuming now you don't get time, but I would always socialise in Gort around Christmas time,” O’Connor adds.

“You'd meet Aidan Harte, who I hurled with in school, you'd always meet them lads. Back then you spent so much time with these lads in school you just drift on a bit because life took you in different directions. I would always have such time for them when we meet up, it is like we were never away.”

Returning to Croke Park for their first Championship match since the 2013 All Ireland Final replay is an important step. “I think it is a big thing and it is made a big thing of within the camp too,” O’Connor admits about Clare’s imminent trip to GAA headquarters.

“The really big days when the Championship is really down to the last four that is where we haven't been for a number of years. It has really, really bothered us being at home watching the semi-finals and final day.

“You begin to question yourself. Are we good enough? Were we good enough to get back there. So there is a sense of satisfaction that we have finally got back. Granted whatever might happen the next day might happen - win, lose or draw - we have shown enough of ourselves this year to suggest that there is a serious team there and good times will follow if we just keep plugging away at it.”

Despite the Munster Final disappointment there is a buzz about Clare again according to O’Connor, who is adamant the Banner outfit are moving in the right direction again. “Absolutely,” O’Connor replies. “Meeting guys the last couple of years if you said you were hurling for Clare or whatever it was almost like a stick to beat you with. Definitely not anymore and you get the sense the Clare public are proud of this team.

“The team performs in a way that they like with honest endeavour and workrate. That has been a massive thing for us to get that sense that a whole county is behind you, it is really, really powerful.

“We had some special days in Cusack Park early on in the Championship and in Thurles when we played Tipperary culminating in the Munster Final where we had unbelievable support. I think when we finish up that those days the county came together, it was a really powerful feeling.”

O’Connor’s Clare career commenced in 2011 when the Banner suffered a demoralising Pearse Stadium loss to Galway. Within two years, though, Clare were All Ireland champions beating Galway along the way. The 2016 Quarter-Final involving the counties culminated in a Galway win, but O’Connor recalls his debut campaign.

“That was a real low point for Clare hurling, that day has been referenced often since,” O’Connor remarks about the evening Clare suffered in Salthill. There was a significant gap in the scoreline, it just showed you where Clare was at that stage. It was stuck in a transitional period, a couple of guys were there for a couple of years, things just hadn't gelled through nobody's fault.”

Davy Fitzgerald’s arrival and the continued development of a gifted collection of young players put Clare on the road to respectability. Silverware was accumulated quickly. “It just wasn't in a good place - Davy Fitz then took over late into the winter 2011 and Davy's greatest mark is how competitive he made us so fast,” O’Connor comments.

“You have seen it with Wexford already. Not to just talk about the hammering we got off Galway, we had got an awful hammering off Tipperary, since then Clare have never been hammered by any team we have played.

“We have been massively competitive. Granted we have lost a lot of games, but never with massive margins in it. We were just talking recently, we hold Davy in great esteem, but his greatest achievement was just showing us what high performance was, what getting the best from yourself was in a hurling sense. I hope his legacy will be long felt into the coming years.”

While Clare have only pocketed an Allianz Hurling League crown since 2013 O’Connor still feels a certain level of consistency has been attained. “Exactly,” O’Connor answers. “There is no point in saying Clare should go out to win every All Ireland, that isn't going to happen.

“What the Clare public want and what we want to show is that we are really competitive, we give it our all. Some days it will go for us, more days it won't. Just the performance element, that we are performing everyday as a team, individuals their performance levels will fluctuate, but that as a team we are performing consistently.

“We feel we have a body of players well capable, we aren't asking lads to do something they aren't capable of. The cohort of players there now are very capable of being competitive at the business end of the Championship.

“Our trophy cabinet isn't exactly bursting at the seams, we aren't going to go dominate like Kilkenny did. Just being competitive, being involved in the big days, that is really what makes the training worthwhile.

“That is what keeps you going in the back of your head when you are slogging it out in early January and into February.” In the white heat of Championship fare is precisely when Clare want to parade their talent. “That is when, as hurlers, you feel the most alive,” O’Connor comments.

So 2018 was always likely to be an exacting summer with the new Championship format and O’Connor has relished the task. The mental challenge of being primed for games can be tricky. “Yeah, I suppose it has been well documented in the media the challenges it has thrown up,” O’Connor says. “For the guys in the Super 8s I'm sure when they reflect on it after it will be the mental side of it more than anything.

“You are getting up for matches mentally, you need to start your mental preparation early in the week. If you played on Sunday you don't have too long of a time to relax, you need to start going again. That has been a real challenge for guys.

“We are all probably referred to as amateurs playing a professional game, but it has showed us how the true professionals ply their trade. It is obvious there is a gap with where we are and what the level the real professionals are at.

“You saw a drop off in performances for teams playing three weeks in a row etc. While what we are doing is endeavouring to be as professional as we can the nature of the working week makes it quite mentally taxing to move forward in it.”

O’Connor derived satisfaction from how Clare carved out a win over Wexford with the stakes piled high at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. “It was brilliant because there was a couple of different elements to it,” O’Connor responds.

“You had the whole thing of not being in Croke Park for a while hanging over us, there was the more immediate thing of getting over the bitter disappointment from the Munster Final, and then you had the Davy factor thrown in as well.

“Although it mightn't have drummed up major significance nationwide that is as big a match as we had played in a while. Just what it meant to the group, where we were, and where we would be after it and all those things. To come out with a win and performance with guys really in form was brilliant.”

Clare survived. Now they want to thrive at Croke Park.