By John Harrington

Clare’s Colin Ryan was giving off some very Zen vibes in the tunnel beneath the Kinnane stand after Sunday’s drawn Allianz Hurling League Final against Waterford.

He would have been the Banner County’s hero had Maurice Shanahan not hit a last gasp equaliser which cancelled out Ryan’s wonderful strike three minutes earlier.

But rather than reflect ruefully on what might have been, Ryan was smiling as if he had just scratched a lotto card to reveal three €20s. And in a way he had. Because if you ask any county player what his biggest bug-bear with the modern game is he’ll tell you it’s the imbalance between the amount of training sessions he’s obliged to do compared to the relatively small amount of serious matches he plays.

It would have been nice to hit the winner on Sunday and claim a League title for his County, but Ryan was visibly excited by the prospect of doing it all over again with Waterford.

“Probably I thought we won it when the puck out came down and we had it won,” he admitted. “I thought our lads were fighting fierce well. Brian (Gavin) made a decision. I was a bit far away from it to see what it was. But fair play to Maurice: he nailed it. It brings us back for another day. And I suppose we don’t have to look forward to another pre-season. We are getting games, games, games. Which is great.

“We love games. I think you can be going there for the week and we would have got flogged this week and then back to the clubs. So we are looking forward to stepping in and it is an important game again. Then you go back to the clubs and it is only three weeks to the Munster championship. If you ask any player it is an ideal situation. I think the gaps are too long between league and championship. You want competitive games so we are just delighted.”

Ryan’s good humour was surely helped by the fact that he had gotten some proper game-time under his belt for the first match in a while. He went away on honeymoon in March and has struggled to force his way back into the team since he returned.

“It was just unfortunate the way things happened," he said. "I was away the lads came in and did a cracking job and it is very hard to move somebody who plays well and I accept that fully. I would never fall out with anyone. I would never throw the toys out of the pram. You take your chances and you do what you can for the team. Delighted to get forty minutes, delighted to get extra time, it was great.”

It’s a testament to the wealth of options that Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald has in attack that a player of Ryan’s quality is not an automatic first choice starter. He was when they won the All-Ireland back in 2013, but it’s starting to look like the class of 2016 has a greater reservoir of talent than that championship winning panel did.

"Everyone is evolving,” says Ryan. “Lads are getting older. I think we are building a panel, maybe. Would I say we have a stronger panel now than in 2013? I probably would. Lads are stepping up to the mark. You can see the lads who are missing and it is just seamless. Lads are giving everything in training and we are working hard and looking forward to the summer.”

What makes this generation of Clare players so impressive is that they are intelligent hurlers as well as being naturally talented ones. They were tactically flexible at U-21 level, and that quality is standing to them in the senior grade too. Sunday’s draw was the first time they have come up against Waterford since Derek McGrath adopted their new system of play last year, and they coped better than most other teams have when exposed to it for the first time.

“They (Waterford) are different, you know,” says Ryan. “They are different to Kilkenny, I suppose or Tipperary. It is a thinking man’s game at the minute. You have to put effort into realising that there are smart people out there and they are trying to put an effort into getting one over on everybody. So you have to do a bit of homework on it and it is a great learning curve for us for June 5th. And I am sure it is going to adapt over and over again and we are going to come up with something new again.

“I’d say they (Davy Fitzgerald and Derek McGrath) are lucky it is a bank holiday because the two boys won’t sleep a wink thinking about what is going to happen next week. That is up to them. They are going to sit down. Davy is going to come up with the best way to counteract Waterford and we will do our best and we will have a right go at them again.”

As we saw on Sunday, when two such tactically astute managers and teams go head to head, there’s every chance free-flowing hurling will be at a premium. Clare and Waterford are so well organised and adept at closing down space, that much of the contest was choked and claustrophobic until the game finally opened up towards the end of normal time and for the 20 minutes of extra-time. Ryan admits it wasn’t pretty at times, but he’s not about to make any apologies for doing whatever it takes to win.

“I’d say the neutrals thought it was horrible, the first half,” he said. “But that is just the way the game has gone. Lads are getting fitter and fitter and at the end of the day, we all give seven days a week every week for numerous months of the year. And all you want to do is win. At the end of your career all you are going to look back on is: did you win medals? And that is all we care about. We don’t care what the supporters think and did they enjoy it. They will enjoy it if they win. I’m  sure the Waterford fans would love it if they won an All-Ireland no matter what way they are playing.”