WHEN TONY KELLY walked off the field after the Munster senior hurling final, he was accompanied by a familiar feeling.

Defeat in a provincial senior decider.

For the fifth time in eight seasons.

For all Kelly’s undisputed brilliance, it remains an omission from his Clare CV. He exploded in the public eye with his range of achievements in 2013 when Clare lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup, while he also celebrated a series of underage glories around that time.

He is now in the midst of his 13th season as a Clare senior, set to turn 31 in December.

But the miles on the clock, and the succession of near misses of late, have not diluted his appetite for the game.

No intention of closing this chapter of his life any time soon.

“I just love hurling, really. Hoggie (Patrick Horgan) did an interview, was it after the Limerick game?And I would really resonate with that. Obviously, you want to win. I love the winter. Like, I love all that. The games are brilliant and this time of year is probably the best time of year in terms of the big crowds, big games.

“There is just something about the team environment and the craic you have and just going to the gym with the lads. “There’s just something about the game that I love. Yeah, I just love hurling. I’ll be one of those who will have to be told that, ‘The legs are gone now, we’re not bringing you back the following year.’ That would be my approach.”

If there is a sense that the experienced core of Clare’s team are edging towards a potential mass exodus, Kelly has no intention of leading the charge to the exit door.

“The older stagers, you’re probably looking at SODS, myself, John, Davy Mac, Paul Flanagan, Cleary, Cathal Malone, the lads who are hitting 30, 31, early 30s, I can’t speak for them. But I know myself I have a goal in my head that it will be another few years anyway.

“I would never put a time on it. ‘Aw put everything into this year’ ”In terms of going, unless the boss man rings and says your services are no longer required!”.”

He looks at the stirring form of team-mates Shane O’Donnell and John Conlon, and is optimistic they will continue.

“The likes of SODs now, we’re under no illusion he is not going to be around for three or four years now.”It would be very hard for him to go in the form that he is in. He’s only 30 this month, he’s still a young man. The hunger in him. I know there is a lot made of his (schedule), he doesn’t come back until March but the training he does on his own.

“It isn’t as if he sits on the couch. He’s a freak of an athlete gym wise, even lifestyle wise he’d be top notch.

“Conlon won’t be going anywhere either, I know he is 35 in September but he’ll be extending out that record another day. A lot is spoken about TJ and Hoggie in terms of longevity and rightly so but John is, I know we talk of legends in Clare, Lohan and all of them, but he is right up there.

“Not just from a player perspective but from a public perspective. the shape he keeps himself in. He’s a young lad at heart but even body wise he is unbelievable, especially coming back from a cruciate during Covid. What he has done with his body is unreal.”

The 2024 season has been a disrupted one for Kelly. He hurt his ankle the week after last year’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Klkenny, while playing a club game with Ballyea. The pain was shaken off as he persevered to play the second half, but after a holiday for a week in Spain, he could sense it still was not right.

“I went for an x-ray and a scan and I had a broken bone in my foot. I rehabbed that, missed the whole club campaign, but was in a boot for seven, eight weeks. I knew the club season was gone, Then came out of the boot and the bone was healed but still had the same problem. 

“Trying to figure out what it was, went to (surgeon) Stephen Kearns in Galway, he said the problem was a break across the shinbone down where the ankle was meeting the joint. So he said ‘we’ll take bone marrow from the hip, go in, glue it and you’ll be fine.’

“He said, ‘I have an appointment for tomorrow, make up your mind if you want it.’ They were closing for Christmas, I went and got it done.

“I probably wasted from August to  December and once I did that (operation) it was five months trying to get back in. “It’s been good since. It was slow trying to get it right.”

His other ankle had been operated on the year before, a routine operation, so he focused on recovery once more in the early stages of this year, joining Ryan Taylor, who was on the comeback trail from a torn cruciate.

As the Munster championship progressed, Kelly was pressed back into action.

A delayed return after pre-season to prolong his career is not something that would sit easy with him.

“No, I just couldn’t (be late coming back in a season). Maybe to a fault, I’ve learned I’ve overtrained as well. For instance, I loved Covid as strange as that sounds in terms of you were working from home but you were training constantly.

“He’d be telling me, ‘Come back in March, it’s great, it’s great.’ I’d be telling him, ‘No, I couldn’t.’ It would just drive me mad. 

“I’m in a WhatsApp group with John Conlon and Conlon would be writing in, ‘Jesus, that session last night was hard’ or ‘it was good’ and I’d be like, ‘F***, Conlon’s getting one up. Boys are getting fit and what am I doing?’ You know that kind of way?.”

His immediate focus is on Wexford in today’s quarter-final, Clare seeking a bounce back from their Munster final dejection.

Kelly is central to their playing ambitions, but down the road it is easy to envisage him helping out from the sideline.

“I’ll always be of the opinion that you should try and give back. I do a bit of coaching in the school, St Flannan’s and we’re lucky enough that we have our house in order underage and you see the level of talent inside and this is only St Flannan’s, a lot of our good lads are inside in Ard Scoil Rís. 

“They’re miles ahead (of) where we were at that stage. I’m seeing fifth years inside, they’re walking past you and they’re absolutely massive. They’re huge. You’d be seeing what they’d be having at lunch, what they’d be doing.

“So even coaching them inside I’d often find you’d learn bits and pieces, that you can adopt to your own game even if you’re only watching a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old playing because some of them are extremely gifted. 

“Even watching the Offaly U20s, you’d always pick up something. Coaching is definitely something I’d like to get into. Whether or not it’s something I’ll get straight into, I wouldn’t say for definite.”