All year long Ballyea’s motto has been ‘you win or you learn’, throughout 2016 they have taken lessons from every game resulting in them being crowned the ultimate winners and 2016 Clare SHC champions.
Robbie Hogan’s name is destined for the history books having become the first man to manage Ballyea to glory at the biggest level in club hurling in Clare. Speaking in the moments after their historic win Hogan dedicated the victory to injured forward Eoghan Donnellan.
Donnellan sustained a back injury during training in the lead-up to the replay and was in hospital in Cork as his teammates dug deep to get their hands on the Canon Hamilton. “Eoghan is just a fantastic lad, we wouldn’t be in any final but for Eoghan, we did it for him”.
Ballyea’s character was to the fore as they edged out Clonlara by three points. When John Conlon goaled to level matters on the fortieth minute Hogan’s men refused to panic and he’s very proud of them for grinding out the win. “When we’ve gone down we’ve clawed it back, all year long we’ve been coming back and today wasn’t any different, great character out of the lads and I’m thrilled for them”.
While Stan Lineen may be the captain of the team there are leaders in every position according to Robbie. “There’s leaders all over the field, the likes of Gary Brennan, Niall Deasy they’ve led and nothing seems to phase them. Two weeks ago we had one hand on the cup but today we’ve two hands on it and we’re delighted”.
Two weeks ago he repeated their motto and the significance it has, the moves made by Robbie and his management team of Fergal Hegarty, Raymond O’Connor, Alan Duggan and Diarmuid O’Sullivan for the replay show just why their philosophy has been so important for them.
“The motto we had after the Éire Óg game was you win or you learn and we didn’t win the last day but we learned a bit, everyday is a school day, we could have been more ahead in the first half really but I’m just over the moon and delighted for the group of lads” the beaming Ballyea man said.