Clare shocked by hungrier Laois

Laois 3-16
Clare 3-13
CLARE travelled to O’Moore Park in Portlaoise last Saturday in the knowledge that victory would secure them a place in the Division 2 final against Limerick.

However, despite suffering a rare and shock loss to the Midlanders, the likelihood remains that the Banner will still get to the final. Victory over Carlow in their final outing on Sunday week will give them that final spot but such has been the mixed form shown by the team in this campaign that they cannot take anything for granted in relation to their home tie.
Throughout this league campaign, Clare have conceded big scores and this trend continued on Saturday evening. This is an aspect of their play that the team manager, Ger O’Loughlin has spoken about after each game, stressing that there will have to be a big improvement before they can hope to compete comfortably in Division 1.
In addition to conceding such big tallies, the team’s failure to convert good scoring chances was particularly obvious on Saturday. In this latest outing Clare recorded a total of 17 wides and some of these were from positions that inter-county hurlers simply should not miss from.
Clare went into Saturday’s game with two changes in personnel from the previous week. Patrick O’Connor, unavailable for the game against Kerry due to a club fixture, was in at wing-back to the surprise omission of Cian Dillon, while up front Darach Honan started in place of the injured Colin Ryan.
From the outset, the home side showed by far the greater hunger for victory. They hunted in packs throughout the opening half and Clare were fortunate to be just three points in arrears at the halfway point when the score was 1-9 to 1-6.
The teams exchanged early points before a good Laois move involving Sean Burke and Neil Foyle ended with a John Brophy goal. By the 10th minute they had extended their lead to five points before Clare fought back to level for the second of seven times in this tie. Conor McGrath pointed from play in the twelfth minute and within 60 seconds he won possession from an excellent Nicky O’Connell delivery before shooting to the net.
Having pulled back a five-point deficit to level by the end of the first quarter, Clare supporters expected their side to push on but it was Laois who had the better of matters from here to the break. They scored five points without reply as Clare struggled in a number of positions.
Heavy rainfall at half-time made conditions more difficult as the second half got underway. There appeared to be more urgency in Clare’s play and they quickly hit the front. A Conor McGrath point was followed by a Darach Honan goal after Diarmuid McMahon had dispossessed the home side’s goalkeeper.
Three times in the next 10 minutes the sides were level before Nicky O’Connell sent Clare back into the lead. The visitors should have been further ahead at this time but they were guilty of some poor finishing and none more so than Jonathon Clancy.
As the midpoint of the half approached, the Clarecastle man hit the target when, after winning possession from a Domhnaill O’Donovan clearance, he blasted the ball to the net.
Clare failed to build on this four-point lead and Laois came back strongly. Goalkeeper Donal Tuohy failed to hold possession from a Matthew Whelan delivery and corner-forward Owen Holohan first-timed the ball to the net, putting his side back in front. Hyland followed with a long-range point and Laois were two up with 10 minutes remaining.
Two Nicky O’Connell efforts, one from a free, levelled the game before Fergal Lynch had his first of the evening to edge Clare ahead again. Another Hyland effort tied up the teams for the seventh and final time with four minutes of normal time still to play.
With a minute of added time played and the sides still level, a share of the spoils looked the likely outcome until Hyland, now operating at full-forward, got in a powerful overhead strike on Joe Fitzpatrick’s delivery for the winning goal.
Corner-backs Pat Vaughan and Domhnaill O’Donovan were always prominent in the Clare defence, while Brendan Buglar, switched to centre-back midway through the first half, got through a lot of good work.
Nicky O’Connell worked hard at midfield, as did his Clonlara clubmate John Conlon when he moved to this sector in the second half. While all six forwards got on the scoresheet, this sector struggled on the evening.

Laois: Paddy Mullaney; John A Delaney, Brian Campion, Brian Stapleton; Joe Fitzpatrick, Matthew Whelan, Brian Galvin; James Walsh, Sean Burke; Brian Dunne, Ger Reddin, Willie Hyland; Owen Holohan, Neil Foyle, John Brophy.
Subs: Eoin Costelloe for Dunne (50 minutes) and Noel Costelloe for Burke (60 minutes).
Scorers: Willie Hyland (1-10, 8f), Owen Holohan and John Brophy (1-0) each, James Walsh and Sean Burke (0-2) each, Matthew Whelan (free) and Joe Fitzpatrick (0-1) each.
Frees for: 18; wides: 8.
Bookings: Willie Hyland (13 minutes), John Brophy (25 minutes) and Owen Holohan (69 minutes).
Clare: Donal Tuohy; Pat Vaughan (capt), Conor Cooney, Domhnaill O’Donovan; Brendan Buglar, James McInerney, Patrick O’Connor; Nicky O’Connell, Sean Collins; John Conlon, Fergal Lynch, Jonathon Clancy; Darach Honan, Diarmuid McMahon, Conor McGrath.
Sub: Caimin Morey for Collins (49 minutes).
Scorers: Nicky O’Connell (0-7, 4f), Conor McGrath (1-3, 1f), Jonathon Clancy and Darach Honan (1-0) each, John Conlon, Diarmuid McMahon and Fergal Lynch (0-1) each.
Frees for: 17; Wides: 17
Bookings: Brendan Buglar (13 minutes), Diarmuid McMahon (54 minutes) and Darach Honan (70 minutes).
Referee: Michael O’Connor, Limerick.

A tale of soft scores
ERRORS cost the Clare hurling team the points on Saturday, according to manager Ger O’Loughlin.
“We are bitterly disappointed with the loss but from the management point of view we learned a lot today. Some fellas will have to pick things up or else they don’t deserve to be out on the field,” O’Loughlin said.
“I thought in the second half we showed great spirit after a very, very poor, and at times completely dead and no attitude, first half. I couldn’t ask for any more in the second half. We gave them the game really with errors. We have to eliminate that at this level.
“I consider Laois to be one of the better teams in Division 2 and if you give them the chances they will take them,” he said.
“I thought overall that we might have deserved to win it with our second-half display but when you miss as much as we did in the second half from very scoreable positions and you concede soft enough scores, you are going to be on the losing end. I am disappointed with that,” O’Loughlin continued.
“We just have to pick ourselves up. It’s in our own hands. If we beat Carlow in Cusack Park in two weeks time we will be okay,” he added.
The Clare manager is concerned about the chances his charges are missing in games. “Seventeen wides and we gave them something in the region of 11 frees. We have to start learning to cut out half of these frees. Some of them are needless. It’s not that we are not addressing it, we are but we need to get it into our heads that anything from 60 or 70 metres, fellas will put them over. Willie Hyland was very sharp on the frees for them today.
“We work on not giving away scores but a lot of what we conceded are coming from frees, 11 or 12 today. Sometimes you have no other choice if a fella is in a scoreable position but a lot of our frees are what I call lazy frees and we need to continue to address that as it’s costing us games,” according to the All-Ireland winning corner-forward.
He admitted to being worried going up to Laois as the Clonlara players were heading for Dubai straight after the game.
“We spoke about it in the hotel before the game. We emphasised that we could not be complacent. In fairness, John Conlon, Domhaill O’Donovan and Nicky O’Connell performed superbly, while Darach Honan, when he got on the ball, looked dangerous but he didn’t get on the ball enough.
“The bottom line is if we won today we could have eased our way into the Carlow match and tried a couple of things. Now it’s a make or break for us again. Our destiny is in our own hands but we definitely need to improve.
“We are just not playing well enough and you would go into the Carlow game worried as we are only hitting it in phases,” O’Loughlin concluded.