McNamara says he won't allow crisis to drag on

CLARE HURLING:THE CLARE County Board may have pledged to resolve the conflict between Mike McNamara and the majority of his senior panel "within the next seven to 10 days", but that has only temporarily lifted the heat on the hurling crisis, and certainly hasn't given any great hope of an amicable solution.

Instead, Tuesday night’s county board meeting still appears to have postponed the inevitable: that McNamara’s days in the position are numbered.

In the meantime, McNamara does at least have the backing of the county board, who reiterated as much at Tuesday’s meeting after the manager had delivered his end-of-season review.

This was based at least in part on the fact that the letter signed by 26 of the 27 hurling panel members, in which they stated their dissatisfaction with McNamara, didn’t actually outline or detail any of their grievances.

As a result, county chairman Michael O’Neill announced that the county board “would now work with the manager and players to try to resolve the matter within the next seven to 10 days”.

This part of the meeting was held in camera, and afterwards McNamara addressed members of the press, starting out, typically, by putting the matter in context.

“This is sport,” he said. “It’s not a life or death issue. There are no fatalities at the end of this.”

However, McNamara did indicate that he wasn’t prepared to let the matter drag on along the lines of the Cork hurling strike.

“We’ll get on with it, what’s best for Clare hurling. The mood of the delegates is that the players and management and the county board should get together on this, and try to resolve it, if at all possible.

“If it can be resolved it will be, but we won’t be talking or dragging things out until next March, I assure you.”

It’s unfortunate that the county hurling crisis off the field has taken a lot of the attention away from Clare’s latest success on it: the progress of Cratloe.

Although founded as far back as 1887, and one of the first GAA clubs of any sort in the county, Cratloe only this year won their first Clare senior championship title.

That came last Sunday week with the two-point win over defending champions Clonlara.

This Sunday, they’re out against Waterford champions Ballygunner in the Munster club semi-final, to be staged at Walsh Park, in what will be their first venture into the provincial championship.

Ballygunner reached the final in 2005, and boast several of Waterford’s most experienced hurlers, including Paul Flynn, Fergal Hartley, Andy Moloney and Shane O’Sullivan.

Cratloe aren’t without hope, however, especially considering they weren’t given much hope in the Clare championship.

Instead, they upset Clonlara in quite dramatic fashion, overturning a one-point deficit in the final few seconds when Pádraig Chaplin fired home the winning goal.

It will take a similar upset for them to beat Ballygunner, although, either way, it’s already been a memorable season for Cratloe, whose intermediate football team have also qualified for the Munster semi-final by beating St Patrick’s of Limerick last Sunday.