Peter Keane ends interview abruptly after Clare's heavy All-Ireland loss to Down

Irish Daily Mirror

19-05-2025

Clare manager Peter Keane ended an interview with local media abruptly after the Banner's emphatic All-Ireland Round Robin defeat by Down at Cusack Park over the weekend.
Keane's side crashed to a 3-27 to 1-16 defeat in Ennis to get their Sam Maguire campaign off to the worst possible start.
Given that this was their only home game, and it was against their lowest ranked opposition in terms of league standings, Clare now face an uphill battle to claim one of the top three places on offer.
If there is a silver lining to the cloud it's that this is the least difficult group, although it's still a long shot that the Banner will pick up any points over the coming weeks.
Clare face Monaghan away in Clones in a fortnight in Round 2 and will finish up playing Louth at a neutral venue in the final group game two weeks after that.
One win has often been enough for teams to at least make the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-finals, which are contested by the second and third placed teams in the four groups. The four group winners go straight into the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
This is Clare's third year in a row in the All-Ireland series and they are yet to pick up a point, with seven defeats out of seven games.
In 2023, under Colm Collins, they lost to Monaghan and Donegal by five points and Derry by six points - a series of very respectable results.
This came after relegation to Division 3 following a long spell as a solid Division 2 outfit in Collins' decade in charge.
In 2024, under Mark Fitzgerald, Clare competed in Division 3, finishing third, before losing to Cork by two, Tyrone by 14 and Donegal by 24 points in the All-Ireland series, as their results deteriorated over the weeks.
The context of Clare's struggles in the Sam Magurie group stages, comes down to the imbalances in the provincial championships.
For the second year in a row they are the lowest ranked league team in the competition,
Clare finished third in Division 3 this year, and still qualified as a second seed by making the Munster Final after defeating Tipperary in the Munster semi-final. They lost the final to Kerry, who are a top seed.
If the top 16 teams in the league based on final placings made the All-Ireland series, it would see Clare and Down (qualifer for the 2025 All-Ireland as Tailteann Cup champions in 2024) replaced by Kildare and Offaly.
The draw was kind to Clare though and they'd have targeted the Down match as one they could win.
But, it didn't work out that way and when Keane faced the media after a 17 point defeat by Conor Laverty's side it didn't end well with the interview with the Clare Echo and Clare FM lasting just one minute.
Keane is a triple All-Ireland winning Kerry minor manager and a SuperValu store owner in Killorglin.
He led Kerry seniors to the 2019 All-Ireland final, where they lost after a replay to Jim Gavin's five-in-a-row chasing Dublin side.
Keane's three year tenure as Kerry boss came to a close after the 2021 extra-time All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Tyrone, with his bid for a fresh terms falling on deaf ears as Jack O'Connor was appointed for a third term in the job.
The question after the Down defeat which set Keane off was when he was asked if the team had gone backwards during his first season in charge, after taking over from fellow Kingdom man, Fitzgerald, who left to join Tomas O'Se's Kerry under-20 management team.
Clare Echo journalist Paraic McMahon posted a transcript of the interview online.
Páraic McMahon, The Clare Echo (PMcM): 'A very disappointing outcome, what are your thoughts?'
Peter Keane (PK): 'Absolutely it is disappointing, we never got to the pitch of the game particularly early on, we couldn't get to the pitch of it and then scores start going away from you and you're scratching all the time then'.
PMcM: 'That's the second game in a row really where we've started poorly, is there anything you can put your finger on for this?'
PK: 'The Kerry game start was very poor yeah, putting your finger on it, can we improve on it, we'll go back Wednesday night and see what we can do'.
PMcM: 'Talking about improvement, do you feel Clare are going backwards under your watch. We would have ran Down to eleven points last year, it is a seventeen point defeat today?'
PK: 'Em I suppose Páraic that is maybe an angle you've been coming at for a while, just watching what you've been saying. I wouldn't agree with you but that is the way you think about it'.
PMcM: 'In what regard?'.
PK: 'I'll tell you one thing, I'd f******'....(walks away)