Conlon leads Clonlara to fairytale Clare final win

Current All-Star nominee John Conlon is the only Clonlara player to hold two Clare Senior Hurling Championship medals after leading his side to a fairytale first title in 15 years in Cusack Park.

In front of an attendance of 5,048, the sole survivor of Clonlara's breakthrough 2008 success was understandably emotional, especially having been made to suffer three county final and six semi-final reverses in the intervening period.

"That medal is so, so sweet to everyone in this club," beamed the 2013 All-Ireland winner with Clare.

"In our 150 year existence, we’ve only ever won it three times so it’s great to say that we’re champions again."

And deservedly so after completing a perfect six-match winning run that saw them see off Crusheen twice along the way.

Despite being a first final experience for two-thirds of this new-look Clonlara side, they played like veterans of this lofty stage as following Micheál O’Loughlin’s opportunist goal in the 18th minute, there only really appeared one winner.

While a profligate Crusheen didn’t reach the standard of their previous knock-out stage performances thanks to 11 first half wides, they were resilient as they managed to prevent Clonlara trio Jathan McMahon, Colm O’Meara and Ian Galvin from scoring a goal in the first quarter.

The breakthrough seemed inevitable though and finally arrived entering the second quarter when Aidan Moriarty’s pinpoint pass picked out Ian Galvin to unselfishly offload to O’Loughlin to fire an unstoppable shot to the top right corner of Donal Tuohy’s goal at 1-04 to 0-04.

It seemed a release as O’Loughlin converted two more points before the boost of a second major, again stemming from Moriarty who bore down on goal before teeing up 2013 All-Ireland winner Colm