By Cian O'Connell

It has been a decade littered with cruel Munster Championship defeats for Clare, but the past month has brought hope and momentum so joint manager Gerry O'Connor is heartened.

Following an opening weekend loss to Cork the same old issues were being debated, but Clare's response has been emphatic. Three wins over Waterford, Tipperary, and Limerick suggests Clare are gaining in belief and conviction.

Supporters attention has been caught too and suddenly all sorts of possibilities exist for Clare. “In my world where you work you’re judged on your results and them only," O'Connor says about putting the onus on the Clare team to show their true worth.

"You’re judged and measured on your performance. Rightly or wrongly, that’s how we judge ourselves as a management and that’s how we judge our players. We have key factors within that to use and judge our players. It’s important that they’re comfortable in that."

That is why the Semple Stadium tussle with Tipperary carried such weight and meaning. "There’s no point in saying we weren’t under pressure coming into that Tipperary game," O'Connor adds.

"I think it’s fair to say Donal (Moloney) and myself would have faded into the background because we had a two-year contract and I couldn’t see that being renewed and I couldn’t see an appetite within us to continue either. "You get involved in this to try to replicate the success you had at underage level, see are you up to the challenge and basically you surround yourself with good people.

"The big difference between this year and last year is that three or four people have come into the management/backroom team and made a huge difference."

Significant lessons have been learned by the Clare joint management team according to O'Connor. "There’s a lot of key differences," O'Connor states. "The main difference is that this year we’ve focused exclusively on ourselves rather than the opposition, we’ve added really good people to our backroom team, but the biggest single change from our perspective is that the players have taken ownership and responsibility for the whole project.

"They lead the analysis, they lead the team talks. They look at the opposition and come back to us and they outline where they see their opportunities.

"Because the players are the guys out there, they are the experts and they understand the opposition far better than we do. We take the feedback on board, we go to the coaches and the coaches implement a gameplan and a training regime based on what the players want. Ultimately, there’s no point players in the heat of a Championship match looking towards the sideline for inspiration because we’ve got to create an environment where they are all become leaders and communicate throughout the game."

Two matches in Cusack Park helped Clare's cause, but O'Connor is adamant that a special bond between the team and supporters is being forged again. "You have got to put a product together for people to buy," O'Connor remarks.

"Maybe last year we didn't put together a great product. Whereas this year we feel we have a reasonable product to sell and the customers are coming to buy. Ultimately there is really, really passionate and emotional hurling people in Clare. They are just waiting to support a team that replicates that passion and emotion."

Clare needed to win in Ennis against Waterford in Round Two and that match had many important moments. "I think, and I have often referenced Shane O'Donnell's tackling and shoulder against Waterford because that was something we felt as a team we were missing," O'Connor reveals.

"We need to show our supporters and ourselves as a group and a team how much it mattered to us. We would feel that incrementally we have been showing how much this matters and how proud we are to represent the people of Clare. "I think that is being replicated and it is being reciprocated because I have never seen or felt emotion on any pitch like we experienced down in Thurles. There was people very emotional. It impacted on the players.

"We came in off the field and we made a promise to ourselves as a group and our supporters out on that field that the performance was not going to be a spike, it was going to be a standard that we were going to try to maintain for the rest of our season."

Limerick were subsequently toppled. Can Clare add Cork to their growing list on Sunday in Thurles?