'We'd have beaten Donegal' - Clare's missed 1992 chance

We saw Bill Murray in Thurles last weekend, being walked through the finer points of the ancient game by JP, while Noel Grealish TD loomed behind, ready to interject, no doubt. Truly, Semple's VIP area has never witnessed such cumulative star power in all its days.

Thirty years ago, for the Clare footballers hared onto the Croke Park turf for their biggest ever game, it was Kevin Costner who was knocking around, in town for a project he had in mind about Michael Collins - which never materialised, or at least when it did, Costner had nothing to do with it.

Clare midfielder Tom Morrissey didn't bump into him after, although one team-mate did.

"Frankie Griffin got that honour," Morrissey told RTÉ Sport this week. "I didn't meet him after but Frankie met him. 'Great ball game, number 5!' he said to him."

County Clare has enjoyed a bumper summer and while the hurlers, as ever, have hogged most of the limelight, the footballers, those diligent overachievers, have crept up on the flank once more, breaking into their first All-Ireland quarter-final since 2016. As in that season, they downed the Rossies in the last-12. Unlike then, this is one they have a reasonable chance of winning.

Strange to say but people of a certain vintage can still say that they saw the Clare footballers win a provincial title before their hurlers.

Clare hurling was not in rude health in 1992. As Anthony Daly recounted later on, that was the year they were advised to "stick to the traditional music" by Waterford (themselves no great shakes) corner- forward Kieran Delahunty in the closing stages of their poorly-attended Munster first round replay. Had the game occurred a couple of months later, Delahunty might have been able to tell the Clare lads to stick at