Clare looking to banish any further U20 hoodoos

Eoin Brennan looks ahead to the Munster Under 20 Football Championship Semi-Final between Clare v Kerry at Hennessy Memorial Park Miltown Malbay

Having already emphatically brushed aside one hoodoo by bridging a 26-year gap to their last victory over Tipperary at this grade, Clare have an opportunity at exorcising two more significant ghosts when hosting Kerry at the penultimate stage back in Miltown Malbay this Monday evening.

With the carrot of a first Munster Under 20 Final appearance since 2002, taking down the might of the Kingdom for the first time in 14 seasons would be seen a a major shock even allowing for Clare’s incremental underage development to contest three of the last five provincial minor deciders.

After all, Kerry, along with annexing eight of the last nine provincial minor crowns, are also joint top of the Under 20 (formally Under 21) roll of honour with 28 titles.

It’s a task that Clare will relish though, hitting the ground running in the championship last Monday to overpower Tipperary by 13 points.

“I’m pleased with a lot of aspects of it, pleased with the attitude, pleased with the work-rate and obviously pleased by the result,” admitted Clare Under 20 manager Michael Neylon afterwards.

“We also know that we have to have significant room for improvement to get ready for next week.”

Indeed, the Banner could have hammered home their utter dominance even more as they actually led by a whopping 17 points by the hour mark, with Miltown native Neylon pleasantly surprised by such a facile outcome.

“We were surprised because Tipperary contested the Munster Under 20 Final last year and retained eight of those players for this year’s championship so we felt that they were more experienced than us coming into the game.

“But we kept saying to the lads all week that it would come down to work-rate and our guys certainly did the work tonight to get them over the line.”

With home advantage and the confidence of a sizeable opening victory under their belts, not to mention the Mid-March capture of the Liam O’Connor Cup, Clare will be quietly confident of springing a surprise if they can even surpass that level of performance this Monday against a Kerry side making their competitive bow in this year’s championship.

“Having home advantage again is definitely a help and the fact that we’ve had a good win here night tonight will propel us on to next Monday night again.

“In saying that, Kerry are one of the best teams in the country. All counties have played plenty of challenge matches up and down the country over the past three months so everyone knows who is beating who and Kerry have been noted as one of the best teams out there at the moment.”

“So we have it all to do but tonight was about earning our opportunity to go and have a cut at Kerry next week so we’re really looking forward to that now.”

Already without Lissycasey goalkeeper Thomas Collins through injury, the worrying sight of inspirational joint-captain Fionn Kelleher having to succumb to an ankle injury in the dying embers of Monday’s tie means that the defensive anchor is in a real race against time to take up his centre-back berth against Kerry.

“We have a week to turn things around but that’s the nature of this competition, you just have to roll with the punches. Fionn [Kelleher] will do his best to get back for next week but if he doesn’t make it, there are others guys there jumping at the bit to get in.

“We had a lot of guys there on the bench tonight that had started for us in challenge games and those Liam O’Connor Cup games as well. We feel that we’ve a strong panel, that was shown tonight but we can and must improve if we are to match Kerry.

“I mean 3-15 is a good score in these conditions but we would also be concerned by some of the ones that we didn’t get [Clare kicked 12 wides] because we know that next week, we’ll need every single one of them.

“The decision-making will have to be really good up front but that’s what we have been preparing for over the past few months and hopefully we can deliver further on that potential against Kerry on Monday evening.”

Venue: Miltown Malbay
Throw-in: 7pm