The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
FOR much of Sunday’s game it looked like Clare were shaping up as winners.
With Clare dominant around the field and leading by five points in the second half, it looked like the Banner were well on the way to a fourth All Ireland, but Daniel Kearney never felt it was gone from Cork.
“There was always belief there. Four or five points is nothing in an All-Ireland final,” he noted.
To say the very least, there was a lot of speculation in the build up to the final about tactics and virtually everyone expected the Banner to at least try to use Pat Donnellan in a free defensive role once more.
That didn’t happen and Kearney felt that Cork might have focussed too much on tactics, forgetting about the very basics and the attitude they needed to bring to an All-Ireland final.
“Clare set up in a traditional format, maybe we weren’t expecting that and maybe it threw us a bit. With the tactics, we might have taken our eye off how hard we had to play, how aggressive we had to be and stuff like that. In the first half they definitely out-hurled us but we were still only two points down and we could take that out of it.”
He acknowledged that there had been a lot of focus on Clare’s seven-man defence in Cork over the last couple of weeks.
“I suppose it was kind of hard not to (concentrate on that tactic) because the two games they had it, their two best games, were the games they had it. You couldn’t ignore that, but we also knew anything could happen. Who knows, they might play a spare man the next day; it’s another day out.
On a psychological level, he said everyone was put back to square one by the result.
“Mentally it’s very tough because for the last few weeks you’re building yourself up to a high and now there’s no outcome. We have to go back and rebuild again.”
While he was fairly happy with his own game, he was disappointed that his run through the Clare defence in the first half ended with a save by Kelly rather than a goal. “Colm Galvin is a good player and I think we’re very similar. He was getting on a few balls and I was getting on a few balls and I was trying to get tight on him. I was disappointed I didn’t put away the goal, maybe if it was Hoggy (Pa Horgan) or Luke (O’Farrell) they would have brought it in an extra five yards and buried it. It was a great save, I thought I was doing the right thing by putting it low. That’s two times now I’ve had a goal opportunity, maybe the next day I’ll get another chance and bury it!”
After the match, supporters and pundits debated the last line ball, in which Stephen Moylan went for a score. Many felt he should have played a short ball to another Cork man, which might have seen the Rebels keep possession and run down the clock.
Kearney felt that the right option had been taken, however. “Hindsight’s brilliant. Hoggy was saying afterwards that maybe we should have hit it into the corner but if we did that and the ball stayed in play. I thought he did the right thing going for a score and making sure it went out of play.”
Cork discipline will have to improve the next day, Kearney believes. “We definitely have to cut down on the frees anyway because he (Colin Ryan) was hitting them all over. He’s so accurate but they were soft frees, leaving in the hurley and things like that, little things we have to work on.”
After breaking his leg in a club game in April, it seemed that Paudie O’Sullivan’s year is over, at inter-county level anyway.
Sunday’s result gives him a real chance of making his comeback in an All-Ireland final. Kearney said he wasn’t quite sure if the Cloyne forward will play.
“He was really pushing this week and in three weeks you wouldn’t know. You need to be up to championship pace and it’s very hard for a fella who hasn’t played for three months to come back but Paudie will definitely be trying. On Thursday if you told him he had three weeks, he’d take your hand off. He’ll be training unbelievably hard, those big games suit Paudie and a bit of creativity could open Clare up.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
