John Conlon praises anyone who plays GAA and works a hard labouring job.
Clare’s centre-back singled out his his Banner teammate Peter Duggan, who works like a dog both on and off the field. Duggan works in construction and gets up at 6:00 am and is in bed most nights by 9:30pm as he revealed in a diary with the Irish Examiner.
The Clonlara man also mentioned the dramatic drop in farmers playing inter-county hurling, which was reported in a survey conducted by the Gaelic Players Association a couple of years ago. Perhaps the numbers have even dropped more, which is a worrying statistic.
“Yeah, look, I'm fortunate that I'm a primary school teacher,” Conlon told presenter Des Cahill on RTÉ Saturday Sport.
“I suppose I finish each day at three o’clock and be gone by half three to four o'clock, and I'm lucky that I get that extra hour and a half before I go to training. I look at some lads, like Peter Duggan, who are in a daily labour-intensive job. One of my club mates, Dylan McMahon, is an apprentice carpenter, and I can see them going into training some days with their snicker pants on.
They're wrecked nearly just trying the boots out of the bag. They are like, let's go training. It’s a testament to what they do and the physical labour they put in daily. Peter shows that on the field of play because he is a dog of a man and puts himself through pain to win for Clare.
Yeah, Jesus, it’s a testament that doing a job like that is very tough on the body. I think I saw a study there a few years ago that showed that 20 years ago, there were a lot of farmers and people working in labour-intensive jobs. Still, now that’s gone to five or less per cent, which is why, the way it's going, people are looking at their careers, trying to go to college, and doing all these different things with sport in mind.”
Conlon also praises their great rivals, Limerick, and fully believes they will be back in 2025.
“Since 2018, they have been a fantastic team, one of the most consistent and perhaps the greatest teams ever to play the game,” Conlon said.
"I remember when we won in 2013 and then tried to back it up in 2014; it was so difficult to get to that level. You had a target on your back every day. You left the league and championship games, and we couldn’t get to that consistency. They lost in 2019, but they were able to come back from that upset against Kilkenny in 2019 and keep that level of performance that they have given year in and year out, especially since the round robin has returned after COVID. They play eight or nine games to win an All-Ireland every year. For the last two or three years, they have been top performers. The level of consistency that they can get to and perform is very admirable. Even this year, they were only a puck of a ball away from returning to the All-Ireland final. They will return next year, so we look forward to the challenge again.”
Don’t expect this rivalry to die out anytime soon.
