It was two months ago at O’Garney Park in Sixmilebridge when the day came that Conor and Diarmuid Ryan thought they'd never see. 41 minutes into the Clare SHC group stage game against Clooney/Quin, Conor stepped off the Cratloe bench and entered the action.
Diarmuid hit his older brother with a pass for his first possession. It was a perfect moment. Before this season, they'd never even trained together.
Five-and-a-half years previous, Conor was forced to retire from sport due to an issue with his pituitary gland. A doctor told him his body was "broken". It wasn't producing the adrenalin an athlete needs and his energy levels on the pitch were not what they had been when he won an All-Ireland title and All-Star with Clare in 2013.
28 September 2013; Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald celebrates with Conor Ryan after his side's victory. GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final Replay, Cork v Clare, Croke Park, Dublin. Photo by Sportsfile
Having to tell Diarmuid, then a teenager who had just been called up to the Clare senior panel, that they would never play together for club or county was a twisting knife in an already bleeding wound.
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"When you're still playing at 26 and he's coming along at 17, you're thinking there's a chance," Conor tells Balls.
"The first year I was out of the Clare panel, he was in the Clare panel. So it was like it was literally a revolving door."
'I was living in America for four years'
It was after a big Harty Cup victory with Ardscoil Rís that Conor broke the bad news. "He was probably waiting until I was in good form," says Diarmuid, who this year received his second PwC All-Star nomination.
"It was a bit surreal and took maybe a week [to hit you]. It hits everyone, even lads on the Cratloe team that I was coming into, that Conor wasn't going to be there."
28 June 2017; Clare players, from left, Gary Cooney, Eoin Fitzgerald, Diarmuid Ryan and Breffnie Horner celebrate victory after the Electric Ireland Munster GAA Hurling Minor Championship semi-final match between Clare and Limerick at Cusack Park in Ennis, Co. Clare. Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile
The 'time heals' maxim doesn't always fit, but in Conor's case, it does. The 32-year-old is no longer reliant on medication and his overall health is in a good place. Around March, he started to think there might be some gas left in his hurling and football tank.
"I'm living a normal, happy life now again," he says.
"That was the most important thing. Sport was an aside to that. It was a second-order effect.
"I was living in America for four years, and I got back at the start of January. I started feeling really good, started training a little bit myself. I had a few conversations and ended up meeting the great John O'Gorman in Cratloe. He asked would I chance my arm.
"At that point, it was a case of 'Jeez, maybe I'll play a bit of junior B and let's see what the level is'."
His level was higher than junior B, but on his first night back at senior training, Conor pulled his hamstring after 10 minutes. The player of a decade or so ago would have been devastated. Expectations would have been too high. This version gave himself a break.
16 November 2014; Conor Ryan, Cratloe, scores the second goal past The Nire goalkeeper Tom Wall and fullback Maurice O'Gorman. AIB Munster GAA Football Senior Club Championship Semi-Final, The Nire v Cratloe, Fraher Field, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. Picture credit: Matt Browne / SPORTSFILE
"I was probably too intense about it," he says about his Clare career.
"I was setting unrealistic expectations for myself. When you're setting really lofty goals and they're really, really hard to meet, and you constantly miss them, it becomes very disheartening.
"I always try to make sure that Diarmuid wouldn't kind of fall into the same trap of taking things too seriously.
"The great thing about inter-county is just have a short memory. Play a game, if it doesn't go well, just move on. Whereas if I played a bad game on a Sunday, which became the norm towards the end of my Clare career, I was still pondering about it the following Thursday. That's just not the way to go."
'That started the fire in every child's belly in Clare'
In 2013, Conor was Man of the Match in the drawn All-Ireland final between Clare and Cork. Every ball that fell on the Banner half-back line that day seemed to land in his hand.
Diarmuid was a 13-year-old second year student in Ardscoil Rís attending a game in Croke Park for just the third time.
"There was immense pride at the end of it. Probably thought the game was lost that day," Diarmuid says about the match which concluded with a famous equaliser for Domhnall O'Donovan.
Three weeks later, Clare won the replay to claim their first All-Ireland title since 1997.
29 September 2013; Clare's Conor Ryan lifts the Liam MacCarthy cup during the homecoming celebrations of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champions. Tim Smythe Park, Ennis, Co. Clare. Picture credit: Diarmuid Greene / SPORTSFILE
"That's what kind of started the fire in every teenager's belly, every child's belly in Clare at that time," says Diarmuid.
Replicating his brother's achievements by winning an All-Ireland and a PwC All-Star is the aim. Having a sibling who was part of an inter-county team meant Diarmuid joined the Clare panel with a rolling start. "I wasn't going in cold when I first went in because I could see what Conor was doing in terms of nutrition, strength and conditioning," he says.
'I've never seen Cusack Park rocking like that'
Now six seasons into his Clare senior career, Diarmuid has become a key player at wing-back. In late May, he scored a sensational injury time winner for the Banner as they beat Cork at Cusack Park to reach the final of a pulsating Munster championship.
Clare book their place in the 2023 Munster Senior Hurling Championship Final with a last-gasp winner from Diarmuid Ryan! pic.twitter.com/PAyOuwCdMg
— The GAA (@officialgaa) May 21, 2023
"It was an unbelievable feeling," says Diarmuid about striking that point, his third of the game, from his own half.
"Going to the Cúl Camps over the summer, a lot of kids asked me [how it felt]. I was kind of encouraging them not to take that shot!
"Maybe it was just adrenaline. If I'd missed, that might have been my last championship game this year."
In the stand, Conor was thinking, "Take it".
"He was after hitting a few more. Why not?" says Conor.
"I've never seen Cusack Park rocking like that. It seemed like it turned into a nightclub after the full-time whistle. Freed from Desire was blaring. It was just a great atmosphere.
"I was sitting beside my sister and Diarmuid's girlfriend. We were like, 'Yeah, go for it.' In that moment, to have the confidence to take that on, it just shows incredible maturity and self-belief.
"It's definitely easier watching him play 2,500 miles away on a laptop in New York than it is sitting down in Cusack Park."
21 May 2023; Diarmuid Ryan of Clare, who scored the winning point, celebrates at the final whistle at the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 4 match between Clare and Cork at Cusack Park in Ennis, Clare. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Conor had been in New York working for IBM. He'd moved there after two years studying full-time for an MBA at Boston College.
"People know that I'd be a fairly competitive guy," says Conor.
"I still had a lot of competitive energy. I really leaned into my career, so I think one door closed and one door opened.
"There was enough time in my life where I could really close the chapter on sport for a while. I didn't tell a soul about hurling or football for the first six to eight months I was in Boston.
"When you're back around Cratloe, GAA is the lifeblood of this community. Everything that flows through Cratloe is hurling and football. It's great. I wouldn't have it any other way.
"When you come back, and that was a huge part of the reason that I came back, everywhere you turn there's a hurley and there's a football. I definitely didn't see that walking down Fifth Avenue in New York. It was easier to make my peace with it while I was there. The mind was busy and occupied with other things.
"I was really fortunate to meet a great Corkman in New York, Flor Brosnan, who was willing to forgive us for 2013. I was able to get an opportunity at IBM. I work now with IBM in corporate development from Ireland. I owe a lot to him for that. It just shows the community and the opportunities that will open up to you from the GAA world."
'It would have been the best goal ever'
Clare haven't been back in an All-Ireland final since that replay a decade ago. In the past two years, they've fallen at the Kilkenny hurdle in the All-Ireland semi-final. 2023 was better than 2022, a three-point loss rather than a 12-point loss.
It took Diarmuid weeks, maybe months, to watch the game. "It's important that you do watch them," he says. For a split second in the 73rd minute of the semi-final, it appeared that Clare were about to draw level and take it to extra-time. Peter Duggan's improvised first time strike was heading for the roof of the net until Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy intervened.
Eoin Murphy with one of the greatest saves you will ever see to deny Peter Duggan!#GAANOW pic.twitter.com/SS47zPDUk2
— The GAA (@officialgaa) July 9, 2023
"I was directly behind it when he hit it," Diarmuid says about Duggan's strike.
"He was playing so well up to then. When he just met it, you thought it was going in.
"But you had one of the best goalies in the country over the last number of years, if not one of the best goalies ever, in between the sticks, and he pulled off just an unbelievable save.
"I remember just watching it after with some of the lads and we were just like, 'Oh, how did he manage to save it?'
"That's sport. People just pull off these unbelievable things. I don't think [Peter Duggan] could have done anything different at that moment. It would have been the best goal ever but it turned into the best save ever. That's the margins.
"We tried so hard to come back into it but the first half was a poor outing. We came back into it in the second half and we went to score up, and you're kind of thinking we'll push on now. We're just disappointed we didn't push on."
9 July 2023; Diarmuid Ryan of Clare after the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Kilkenny and Clare at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Though the Ryan brothers' first hurling game together ended in a heavy defeat to Clooney/Quin, and an exit from the championship, it was a blessing in disguise for Cratloe.
'We have something brewing here'
A week later, Conor and Diarmuid played their first football game together. Just as he had in hurling, Diarmuid hit Conor with his first pass.
"At one stage in the year, it was just about winning a game to stay up," says Diarmuid.
"We'd won our first one, lost our second one. Then coming into our third one, the loser was going into relegation and their year was over.
"After that Ennistymon game, it turned around. It was the first game where Conor came on. It was afterwards we were saying, 'They were county finalists last year. We have something brewing here'.
"We only had football to focus on. The buy-in was huge and everyone was down training - juniors, intermediates, seniors. There was only six or seven weeks in it."
What Cratloe had brewing was their first senior county title since 2014. They beat 2020 winners Kilmurry-Ibrickane in the quarter-final and Éire Óg - champions of the previous two seasons - on penalties in the semi-final.
In the final against St Breckan's, a game Cratloe won by two points, Conor came on at half-time and played in midfield with Diarmuid. It was Conor and Cratloe's third Clare SFC title win, and Diarmuid's first.
12 October 2014; Conor Ryan, Cratloe, celebrates at the final whistle after victory over Eire Og. Clare County Senior Football Championship Final, Cratloe v Eire Og. Cusack Park, Ennis, Co. Clare. Picture credit: Diarmuid Greene / SPORTSFILE
"I came back and people see me around the parish and think 'He might play'," says Conor.
"I was trying to explain to people, 'If I'm coming back, you're not getting the 2014/2015 version of me. You're getting a guy who if he can put on a jersey, it's good'.
"I didn't put too much pressure on myself at the time. I was thinking I might play a bit of junior. I'm a competitive guy. I absolutely wanted to play senior again. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have liked to win a county title. It's why you put on the jersey.
"The first step was just getting the jersey back and the second step was getting on the field of play and see where it goes. When I rang Colm (Collins) talking about coming back, I said 'I'll give you 20 minutes, 60 minutes, two minutes, whatever you need'.
"People associated me more with hurling more than football because I'd played with Clare. Coming back to Cratloe, I'd actually forgotten how much I missed and enjoyed playing football.
"I spent the last six or seven years of my life trying to replace that buzz of winning, that buzz of being in a winning dressing room, and I just realised two Sundays ago that I haven't come anywhere close to finding it for the last six or seven years. It was just something different again."
Diarmuid and Conor Ryan after Cratloe's 2023 Clare SFC final victory over St Breckan's.
Nine years ago, when Cratloe did the Clare senior football and hurling double, Diarmuid was just up to Conor's hip.
"Two weeks ago, I was staring up at him," says Conor.
"We're in team meetings and you hear Diarmuid being the leader, taking accountability. It fills you with pride.
"You see the man that he has become. That's the most important thing at the end. Inter-county [GAA], it brings great qualities and great standards into your life but in terms of the brother, the person, the son he's become now, you have to be very proud of that already.
"I don't think I was as much of a big miss [for Clare when I retired] with this guy coming through. I went out and they upgraded in terms of Ryan brothers."
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