Donegal and Clare in McHale Park, Castlebar has previous history

Donegal and Clare meet for only the third ever time in the championship this Saturday while they have also met 11 times in the National League.

The stats from those games make good reading for Donegal as they have only ever lost once to the Banner men. That was back in 1983 in their second ever league clash when Clare won by 0-8 to 0-7 in Cusack Park in Ennis.

On Saturday in the final round of group games in the All-Ireland series the counties will go head to head in Hastings Insurance McHale Park, Castlebar. It’s a venue where the counties have met once before and that was in a National League quarter-final on Easter Sunday, 1995.

Donegal team which played Clare in 1995

Back in the 1990s Clare were riding high, winning a rare Munster title in 1992 and they had a very good team. Donegal met them in a league semi-final in 1993 in Croke Park before that meeting in Castlebar with largely the same bunch of players. Donegal won the Croke Park encounter by 1-12 to 1-7 but had just a point to spare in Castlebar in 1995, 2-11 to 3-7, with Martin Daly bagging three goals for the Banner men.

Brian McEniff had stepped down from the Donegal manager job in 1994 and PJ McGowan was in charge when the sides met in that Castlebar encounter a year later.

“We were very successful under Brian McEniff and I had the task of trying to follow Brian. Some of the players were getting on a bit and there were some new players emerging like Brian Roper, Niall McCready and Adrian Sweeney.

“But it was a good time and Clare were prominent at that time as well, having won Munster in 1992,” said McGowan, speaking to the Donegal Democrat this week.

A familiar face at every Donegal game to this day. McGowan remembers Tony Boyle getting a vital goal that day in Castlebar and Manus Boyle scoring 1-6.

“We have had some interesting games against Clare in that time. I remember the 1994 contest being a close game and we edged it at the end.”

Donegal had Martin Gavigan back in the panel and one of the things that the players had to contend with at the time was that some new playing rules were being trialled in the league but then it was back to the old rules for the championship. Donegal reached the league final that year and then had to play Down in the championship the following Sunday.

“I remember Martin actually stopped playing but I managed him to get back for a couple of matches. He played in the league final against Derry that year in Dublin, which we lost and I remember Damien Barton going out of his way to avoid him. No way did he want to confront Gavigan.”

The teams in the programme from 1995

Donegal’s first game against Clare in the championship came in the Qualifiers of 2009 in MacCumhaill Park,  Ballybofey and again there was little between them with Donegal winning by 0-13 to 1-7.  That day is remembered because of a serious Achilles tendon injury suffered by Christy Toye, an injury which seriously affected the St Michael’s clubman for a good few years.

“It took Christy a long time to recover after that injury,” said McGowan.

“A lot of Donegal supporters would have a poor memory of the last trip to Castlebar (2019) where we played Mayo in the Super Eights on a wet, miserable day.

“We were all stuck in traffic for ages in getting to the match and I know I just got in as they were throwing the ball in and the only place I could get was behind the goals. And of course we took a hiding as well, which didn’t help.

“But hopefully those days are gone. This year, without a doubt, has been refreshing. Last year was a best-forgotten year for us really. Basically, with the same group of players look at what Jim (McGuinness) has achieved. Well, maybe not the same group, because he has got a few guys back.

“We are playing much better football and we are competitive and Jim has got into guy’s heads. We are a side with ambition and I actually think we will beat Clare and then a lot depends on what happens with Tyrone and Cork and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tyrone win that.

“Cork don’t travel that well. But they had their homework well done on us in Pairc Ui Rinn and we still should have won the match. We scored a couple of points when goals were available at the start of the game and we were looking for goals later on when points would have won the match for us.

“Credit to Cork, they had their homework exceptionally well done on us,” said McGowan.

The MacCumhaill’s clubman has very good memories of Jim McGuinness during his first term as manager, as he was county chairman at the time, and he is not in the least surprised by what is happening at the moment.

“They were great times then. You could only be chairman for three years then and in the first year we got to the final of the All-Ireland U-21; next year we won Ulster for the first time in 19 years and then the last year, 2012, was just an absolute dream come true. 

“The supporters, no more than today, got very much behind us. The only thing I would urge a wee bit of caution because the game against Cork might have been a wee dose of reality for us. Donegal supporters were talking about All-Irelands and what this team could do and so on. And it was based on a lack of reality. You will learn from defeats and I have no doubt Donegal will learn a lot from their defeat against Cork, which will stand us,” said McGowan, who hopes that Jason McGee is good to go. 

“He went off with an injury against Cork and it looked serious enough. He has been playing very well and his physical presence has been invaluable for us in the middle of the field. His physicality in that area in the Ulster championship was vital.

“I wouldn’t write Clare off in this game but I think we have enough to beat them,” said McGowan, who added that it is difficult in Clare for the footballers to get the same attention as the hurlers, although former manager Colm Collins was there for a good number of years and was very well respected.

McGowan was in Ennis last year in the most recent meeting between the counties at championship level as they were also in the same group in 2023.

“Our last outing against them was down in Ennis last year. We struggled a bit in the first half, I remember, in that game, but we came to grips with it after half-time. We shouldn’t treat them lightly.”

As regards keeping an eye on what is happening in the other game in the group, Tyrone against Cork in Tullamore, McGowan feels Donegal should look after their own job of work.

“The best thing we can do is concentrate on our game and our performance and ignore what’s happening elsewhere. No doubt we will get that result quickly. Indeed, I noticed watching Clare’s opening game against Cork the TV cameras picked out Brian Dooher, who was a spectator at that game, which was interesting.”

McGowan expects that Donegal will again be very well supported on Saturday and that should be a big help.

“It was incredible the amount of people who travelled to Cork. Hopefully, the result wasn’t too much of a setback. Hopefully, the Donegal supporters will again travel  in big numbers once more on Saturday.”