IN THE SUMMER of 2021, Mark Rodgers had his first taste of a senior hurling championship game against Cork.
Pressed into action as a substitute the 28th minute for Clare on a sun-splashed afternoon in Limerick, the young forward found his involvement short-lived. By the 51st minute he had been taken off in that qualifier, Clare’s ultimately ending due to a two-point defeat.
The transformation in the collective and individual fortunes is striking.
Three years on, Clare are celebrating All-Ireland glory at the expense of Cork. Rodgers is now an established forward, one of the key architects in Sunday’s victory. He fired home 1-3 from play, following up a return of 1-6 against Cork earlier this summer in the Munster round-robin.
Older, wiser, and centrally involved.
“It’s just an amazing feeling. (Sunday) night was really special, not only for us but for partners, families and supporters of the team. This team has probably been on a journey over the past couple of years and we’ve suffered a couple of crushing defeats, particularly in Munster finals and All-Ireland semi-finals. To right those wrongs and finally get over the line was brilliant.
“My first championship game was 2021. We have come an awful long way from that. We were competitive those times, but we weren’t, on reflection, good enough to trouble the best teams. To see the growth, it really made (Sunday) such a special moment.”
When the chance arose to hit the net in the second half of Sunday’s final, Rodgers seized it.
Last year he was denied a goal by a brilliant late hook by Kilkenny’s Conor Fogarty in the All-Ireland semi-final, this season he struck the upright at a crucial stage of the Munster final against Limerick.
No mistake this time.
“Those things happen fairly fast,” recalled the 23-year-old.
“It was probably a case all day that any time anyone got the ball in the attacking half of the field, once you broke the line at all there seemed to be huge space there. David Fitz went down the channel a few times and David Reidy did it in the first half. It just kind of opened up. Look, I’ve missed enough of them this year to know that they don’t always go in. I was just delighted that it did.
“It’s great to score but if you go back and watch, I think it was Reidy who got a brilliant flick on the break. That sets it up. Without that, the ball never breaks and you don’t get the space in behind. There’s so much that goes into a goal like that. Eibhear hit a brilliant puck-out as well. It was just relief really that it went in because I’m not sure that I hit it at a great height.”
The team’s resilience has been central to their All-Ireland success. Bouncing back from a third successive Munster final loss could not have been easy for the Clare camp.
“We reset better than we’ve done before,” said Rodgers, a student at the University of Limerick, who will next month complete his Masters in Business Analytics.
“We took a week off after the game and really refocused. We trained really well. I don’t think the performances against Wexford, Kilkenny and Cork came as any surprise to us. We knew it was in us. The last six weeks have been amazing.
“It’s probably one of the nicest ways to win an All-Ireland, emptying out the bench and having so many lads play and play so well. It’s hard to pick out a player who played badly, which is a real testament to our squad. To say training is just savagery is probably the only way to describe it.
“I think our last sub on was Séadna Morey, who was there in 2013. He was already an All-Ireland winner so when you have players like that, you’re never doubtful about what’s coming on.”
Referencing those intense training matches, naturally prompts a question.
What sort of in-house referee is the Clare manager?
“I’d say whatever you can imagine Lohan is like, that’s exactly what he’s like,” laughed the Scarriff man.
For Clare’s previous All-Ireland victory, Rodgers was a 12-year-old watching from the stands. He was a talented handballer, competing at All-Ireland minor level, but hurling consumes the attention in the Rodgers household. His younger brother Paul played for the Clare minors this year.
The progression of Mark to the senior squad saw him share a dressing-room with some of the 2013 heroes.
“They are revered in the camp. They are brilliant leaders. And sometimes they don’t get the credit they deserve for that. To be such role models at such a young age and to carry that so well, since we’ve entered the panel they have been nothing but brilliant for us in terms of advice, help, keeping an eye out, an arm around the shoulder. It was a brilliant set-up to walk into. Every player my age would acknowledge that.”
As a member of the forward line, Rodgers has a front-row view to observe the genius of one of those players. When the need was greatest for Clare on Sunday, Tony Kelly delivered.
“Tony’s goal was one of the only moments that (I thought), ‘Oh my god the noise was just deafening.’
“That particular moment, it was such a special goal. You can see him cut inside the defender and you think, jeez, he is going for this. He said something that it probably looked a bit easier than it was, which I think is very flattering from him because the skill level he has wouldn’t be comparable to too many others players around.
“It might have been easy for him, but it would not have been easy for too many. It was a remarkable goal and at a crucial stage of the game. Tony has always had that brilliant imagination. He can see things before they happen. When he could inside the defender, I don’t think any Clare person had any doubt that it was going to hit the net. That wasn’t an easy finish.
