Crafty as you like.
11 years on and Gary Brennan is still going strong for the Clare footballers.
Brennan has been lacing his boots up for championship summers for over a decade now and, on Sunday, he will do so again. The midfielder and his Clare teammates are off to Killarney to take on a formidable Kerry side stacked with scoring talents.
Brennan will face off against the likes of David Moran and Jack Barry around the middle of the field and is steeling himself for an almighty contest.
The Clondegad clubman joined Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour ahead of the game and, during a wide-ranging chat, recounted a great story [from 41:00 below] about how Kingdom great Páidí Ó Sé spotted him at an early age and gave him his senior inter-county debut.
“It’s a strange one with Páidí,” Brennan began, “because Donnie Buckley was Clare manager the year before.
“When I finished my Leaving Cert that year, he asked me to come in and train with the squad. So I did a couple weeks of training and we played Fermanagh in the qualifiers. We played Louth in the Tommy Murphy Cup and I think I got on the squad for that.
“That was me thinking, ‘Look, I’m on the road here’.
“When Páidí came in first, I wasn’t on the squad. We were playing one challenge game against Cork and I got a bang on the head, and I had to go off. There was a guy with the squad, Michael O’Neill. He’s actually from my hurling club Ballyea and he’s involved with the county board. He was standing on the sideline and said to me, ‘Páidí would like a chat with you there’.
“I aid, ‘Ah, I’m here with the team. I’ll go down and chat to him later’.
“Michael says, ‘No, go down and talk with him now’. I went halfway down the sideline and Páidí met me on the way and told me he’d love for me to come into the senior squad.
“I told Páidí that I’d like to get my place on the Under 21 squad first and he replies, ‘Ach, don’t worry about that. You’ll be on that team. Come on in with us, sure’.
“So that was a Saturday and the following Sunday we played Carlow in the first round of the league. Páidí gave me the start at full forward. I still didn’t know some of the lads on the panel but, in fairness to Páidí, he gave me the chance and, I have to say, he was always very encouraging of me.”
18 years old and thrown in at the deep-end, Brennan took to life as a senior star quick enough and backed up the faith Ó Sé showed in him.
11 years on and still going strong, Brennan is prove that the Kerry GAA legend still had an eye for talent even in his last, brief managerial role.
