Conor Cleary hails Clare maturity as they brace for Cork test

Conor Cleary was perched in the upper tier of the Hogan Stand when Clare beat Cork in the 2013 All-Ireland final replay.

He joined the panel in 2014 - an inopportune year to get drafted in, perhaps - and finally established himself as a regular first team starter in the league winning campaign of 2016.

It's been a long road to a first All-Ireland final appearance for the 30-year-old defender from Miltown-Malbay - a football stronghold in west Clare.

In that span, there's been no fewer than five Munster final defeats, as well as a couple of bitter semi-final losses to Kilkenny in 2022 and 2023.

At half-time in this year's semi-final, it seemed for all the world that the same script was about to be enacted for a third time. But Brian Lohan's side mounted a terrific final quarter-surge to overhaul the Leinster champions to propel themselves into a first decider since that day in September 2013.

"I came into the panel in 2014, we won the league in '16, got to Munster finals in '17 and '18," Cleary tells RTÉ Sport.

"We had a few lean years after that. In those lean years in '19, '20, '21, you're thinking will them days ever come around, because there was huge effort being put in.

"There's great maturity in the team now. A lot of the team that played in the 2017/18 Munster finals would still be around. That maturity brings a sense that these games won't be around forever, you have to make the most of them when you get them.

"The last two years up in Croke Park, we've been deservedly beaten by a really good Kilkenny team but it was nice to get over the line the last day."

A further boost arrived the following day as five-in-a-row chasing Limerick - whose aura of invincibility had loomed over the entire championship since the turn of the