Iâm fully aware of the politics as youâd know.
As a fella said to me while I was whinging about a clubs recent loss at the bar counter, put your hand up at the AGM or shut the fuck up.
Imo, the general bullshit artist and whinger isnât involved at club level but he or she knows best from the cheap seats.
From personal experience I always found Davy a very alright chap who was happy to give his time. As for Pat, have never had an encounter with him.
Davy is a walking contradiction, on one hand he is very generous with his time and utterly fanatical about hurling but on the other he is extremely thin skinned and would take the slightest perceived slight very personally.
I could give you plenty of offhand examples of Davy being an alright sort but could counter everyone of them with an example of him being bad minded or completely overreacting to things due to him feeling slighted that would make you wonder.
I do think that his auld lad enabled him an awful lot and let him away with far too much when he was over Clare and I have no doubt Pat would burn Clare Gaa to the ground before holding Davy to account. As I said before Davy could have had a mickey Harte/Sean Boylan run of it in Clare if he kept his ego in check and reigned himself in and probably would have if there was an executive to keep him in check - instead he lost the run of himself and had destroyed all the goodwill he had gained in 2013 in just the 18 months afterwards - the Peter OâConnell affair, dark forces, Davy OâHalloran bullying and all the bullshit uttering a to the media were allowed to pass off with no repercussions or censure and pretty much any fair minded Clare hurling fan grew tired of it.
If even a quarter of the rumours from him reign are true when it comes to finances then there is an open and shut fraud case in the offing and it is very much not just a case of him taking a few euro off the top for services rendered/living expenses.
I had a few dealings with Pat years ago in relation to gaelic football of all things, and he was very helpful and not at all what I expected. Have had no dealings with Davy.
Would you rate him as good a tactician as Harte (especially of opposition weaknesses)or as loved by his group of players as Boylan?
Neither I was merely using the length of their reigns as an analogy. After 2013 Davy could have kept the job for another decade plus but he lost the run of himself. If Clare had even one solid year and win any game of consequence between 2014 and 2016 he would probably still have the job today.
Do you think he was a good tactician? I find him very one dimensional but others rave about himâŚ
He won a League title in 2016.
How many of those have Clare in their history?
Too many within Clare seemed to be trying to undermine his project after 2013.
And what happened in the weeks after Clare won said league title?
Did they not go a few years without winning a Munster championship game ?
One win over a hapless enough Waterford side coached by Michael Ryan. Were well beaten the next day out against Cork. One win and 5 defeats - Cork x2, Waterford x2 and Limerick
But, but, butâŚ
They were beaten by better Waterford and Galway teams.
I would say most counties still respected Clare a lot more with Davy in charge than without him.
They lost to Cork first day out in 2014 and he blamed it on Podge Collins playing football and being a dual player.
He blamed it all on Podge?
Thereâs Davy recently on the 2 Johnnies, told a few yarns.
I wasnât on about results.
I was on about how he lost the dressing room. Clare won the league and morale was high in the group. Davy in his wisdom decided that a training camp in carton house was what was needed leading up to championship. The players felt this would be a bad idea knowing how big a demoraliser their flogging in Portugal was in 2014 and made other members of the backroom aware of this to see if they could talk davy around to change tact a bit and not repeat the same mistake.
This only had the opposite effect on Davy and the players were dogged for 4 days and came away physically and mentally empty and pissed off with their manager. This then manifested itself on the field with lifeless displays and a few months later the players pushed him out the gap realising there was no talking to him.
Like I say if he could have learned from him mistakes or if there was an executive strong enough to keep him in check that wouldnât have come about. He deserves a huge amount of credit for 2013 but the majority of the blame for the three years after falls at his feet too.
Biggest witchhunt since the fake news went after another of Clareâs favourite sons, The Donald.Davy is a fund raising machine. Wexford are drowning in cash since he got involved. If Davy helped himself to some cash so what? He raised it and everyother intercounty manager are taking âexpensesâ. Issue here seems to be Clare cant raise 2 bob since Davy left.
Caherlohan? Sure wasnt Colm Collins singing its praises there just recently. Hard not to feel sorry for Davy here.
3 weeks in a row now the National Media Spotlight is on Davy and Pat. If the shove doesnât come now and be successful, youâd fear for the future of Clare GAA.
Personally no. He is brilliant at reorganising a team and getting them fit and hungry for a year or too.
Wexford will get rid of Davy same as Waterford did. Last year was disastrous and he blamed club football for it. Not the dogging in training they got.
Of course they will, even Boylan was gotten rid of eventually. Thatâs irrelevant