Ballyea's Tony Kelly is urging his club to take a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity and claim the Munster senior hurling club title.
Kelly inspired his team to victory in the semi-final as they shocked Thurles Sarsfields 4-18 to 2-22 to book their first ever appearance in the Munster final, just a week after they won their first Clare SHC title.
Now the Clare captain is urging his club to go on and win the final against another surprise package, Glen Rovers, who are in their first Munster SHC final in 40 years.
Kelly revealed just how much of a boost his clubs’ run to the final has been to his town and how everyone has been rallying around the club.
"To beat Thurles Sarsfields in the semi-final and go on to a Munster final is absolutely fantastic," he told RTÉ Sport.
"There’s no guarantee that we’ll ever win a county final or get to a Munster club final again."
"Around the club there’s great excitement, it’s reminiscent on a smaller scale of 2013 when we got to the All-Ireland final with Clare.
"Around the parish there’s bunting and flags out and every young lad is going around in the month of November with a hurley in their hands. They’re out pucking balls, so even from the parish point of view it’s exciting times."
Kelly will not just be satisfied with the Clare title however and insists that Ballyea can go on and and lift the O’Neill Cup at the first time of asking.
"The attitude in the camp is that it’s probably a once in a lifetime opportunity.
"There’s no guarantee that we’ll ever win a county final or get to a Munster club final again. We might but we mightn’t either and we can’t really take the chance that we’ll be back next year or the year after.
"I just think that the attitude in the camp is to take this opportunity while we have it and try and go out and give the best performance we can.
"If we do that and we come out on the right side then fair enough, and even if we don’t at least we can say we gave it a proper crack."
