Clare face Galway in vital tie

CLARE travel to play Galway in the National Camogie League on Sunday, a tie that is crucial for both counties as they seek to progress to the knock-out stage of the competition.

Galway, last year’s All-Ireland finalists, tasted defeat in the first round when they went under to Wexford and another defeat would leave them pointless and out of contention for a place in the play-offs.
Clare drew with Offaly in their opening game when they were without Siobhán Lafferty due to injury and she will again be absent this week. Deirdre Murphy, one of Clare leading players last time out and a very experienced member of the side, is unavailable this week, which is a huge blow to Clare hopes.
When these sides met in last year’s senior championship, Clare were within two points of the eventual All-Ireland finalists at the final whistle. Galway, who were sluggish in their performance against Wexford last week, will be looking to Jessica Gill, Veronica Curtin and Aislinn Conolly to register scores, while Clare will be looking to Kate Lynch, Sinéad O’Loughlin and Ashbourne All-Star player Chloe Morey in the backs to deny the Galway forwards.
Elsewhere, Clare will be looking to Laura Linnane, Shónagh Enright, Mairéad Scanlon, Sharon McMahon and Ruth Kaiser to give them an edge.  It won’t be easy as Galway look to be the more experienced outfit but Clare boss Patsy Fahey has a lot of preparation done this season and will travel to Galway confident of getting something from the game.
The Clare panel for the league is Aisling Hannon, Kelly McLean, Deirdre Murphy (Clooney); Eimear and Ailish Considine, Clare and Helen McMahon, Shónagh Enright, Sinéad O’Halloran (Kilmaley); Aiveen O’Shea, Naomi Carroll, Chloe Morey, Áine McNamara (Sixmilebridge); Róisín Kennedy, Eireann Hennessy (St Joseph’s); Mary Roseingrave, Ann Marie McMahon (Crusheen); Susan Vaughan, Marian O’Brien (Ogonnelloe); Mairéad Scanlon (Scariff); Sinéad Donovan (Wolfe Tones); Siobhán and Fiona Lafferty (Kilnamona); Kate Lynch, Nora Murphy, Lisa Loughnane (Kilkishen); Laura Linnane (Athenry); Anne Marie Fitzgerald (Bodyke); Sharon and Róisín McMahon, Aimee McInerney, Áine O’Brien, Ruth Kaiser (Newmarket); Sinéad O’Loughlin (Inagh) and Michelle Caulfield (Truagh).
The game will be played at Ballinakill near Gort at 12 noon.

Clare referees in action
THE Galway intermediate team will play Down this weekend and Clarecastle clubman, John Dolan will referee the tie.
Killanena’s Fintan McNamara, a well-known camogie referee, will be in charge of Dublin’s senior league clash with Kilkenny at Croke Park on Saturday at 5.30pm. The game will be a curtain raiser to the Dublin v Kerry football league tie and will be shown live on Setanta Sports.