After extraordinary success at the outset, can the Clare captain Tony Kelly’s career bookend All-Irelands?
Tony Kelly celebrates scoring a crucial point late in the All-Ireland semi-final victory over Kilkenny. It helped secure Clare's return to the final for the first time since 2013. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
In the years since, ‘for the first time’ painfully acquired a bruising suffix to read, ‘for the first and only time’. Until now, there has been no return to the final, no shot at writing Paradise Regained.Jimmy Barry-Murphy: ‘The one I really do regret is 2013. I wake up every morning and think about that’
It hasn’t been easy for Kelly. In the past couple of years, he has broken both ankles and struggled for form, coming on against Limerick in the first championship match but not reappearing until the Munster final. “Whatever buttons Brian Lohan is pressing since he came in are working. During Covid he got himself into incredible physical shape and had three years when he was a phenomenon, Roy of the Rovers stuff. Very few players in the game could do that under such pressure and on such a consistent basis.
Former Tipperary All-Ireland winner Colm Bonnar coached Waterford IT in the 2015 final and remembers a sense of the expectations surrounding Kelly as he salvaged extra time for UL at the end of the hour.
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