Heartbreak for minors

Galway 1-23
Clare 1-18 (AET)

THE 61st minute of the All-Ireland minor hurling championship semi-final at Croke Park on Sunday will live for a long time in the memory of Banner County hurling followers.
Three points ahead as the match drifted into injury time, a second successive All-Ireland final appearance beckoned. Then disaster struck, not once but twice, for the Clare side. In their final attack, Galway managed to breach the Clare defence and Gort’s Gerard O’Donoghue, son of Clare man Gerry from Tubber, managed to find the net for the levelling score.
From the puck-out, Clare won a 75m free near the sideline on the Cusack Stand side of the pitch. Team captain, Tony Kelly saw his effort rebound off the upright and the referee then sounded the final whistle.
When Clare scored their goal 10 minutes from the end, it looked like it might prove to be the vital score in a well-contested tie. Galway responded with a brace of points within a minute and from here to the end they put huge pressure on the Clare defence and it eventually paid dividends.
Clare never managed to reach the same level of performance as they had given in the Munster campaign and, particularly in the final in Cork. Fears expressed in the lead-up to the game about Clare’s ability to cope with the physicality of their opponents proved to be well founded.
Great credit must go to the Galway manager, Mattie Murphy and his backroom team for the manner in which they used their substitutes, all of whom made a big impact, with four of them contributing a total of seven points.
For this tie Clare made one change in personnel with Clonlara’s Shane O’Brien selected in the full-back line to the exclusion of Niall O’Connor. Jack Browne moved to full-back where he played quite well in normal time before experiencing some difficulty in coping with Galway towering substitute, Jack Carr.
Points were exchanged three times in the first 10 minutes before Clare moved into a three-point lead with scores from Aaron Cunningham and Cathal O’Connell (2) and they went on to lead by four at half-time when the score was 0-9 to 0-5.
At the start of the second half, the Clare defence had a few anxious moments but managed to keep their goal line intact. Galway, however, had the better of the third quarter, during which they outscored their opponents 0-6 to 0-2 to leave the teams level, for the fifth time, with a quarter of an hour remaining.
Points were exchanged again before Clare struck what many felt would be a vital blow, when Oisín Hickey first-timed the ball to the net after Aaron Cunningham had created the opportunity. Galway responded with a brace of points within a minute but when Cathal O’Connell and Tony Kelly converted frees to leave Clare ahead by three with five minutes to go, it still looked like they would progress to the final.
Shane Moloney, the Galway captain on the day, had a huge influence on the match from when he moved to corner-forward and cut the deficit to two but when Aaron Cunningham hit his fourth of the day, in the 60th minute, the three-point margin looked to have secured Clare their place in the final against Waterford or Dublin.
O’Donoghue’s goal followed to level matters and when Kelly’s effort for the winner rebounded off the upright, talk turned to when the replay might take place.
Neither management team was aware of plans for extra time but the referee and his officials immediately gathered in the middle of the pitch, which suggests they were advised that there would be extra time.
When play resumed, the Tribesmen immediately grabbed the initiative and quickly raced into a three-point lead, which they held to the break when the score was 1-19 to 1-16. They swapped points in the first minute of the second period before Colm Galvin, now operating at full-forward, cut the margin to two with what proved to be Clare’s final score of the day.
Galway certainly had the better of the exchanges in extra time and they had pushed the lead out to four points with three minutes remaining when, in a final throw of the dice, Clare switched Jamie Shanahan to the attack. However, it was too late and Shane Malone brought his tally for the day to 10 points when he scored in injury time.
In a Clare defence, which was under a lot of pressure throughout, newcomer, Shane O’Brien did well, while Jack Browne got through a lot of work at full-back. Goalkeeper, Eibhear Qulligan made one particularly outstanding save.
Up front, Aaron Cunningham caused a lot of problems for Galway and he contributed four points from play. Peter Duggan and Shane O’Donnell were others who caused problems for the Galway defence.
Sean Sweeney, Paul Killeen, Padraig Brehony, Shane Maloney and substitutes Jack Carr and Dean Higgins were prominent for the winners throughout.

Galway: Shane Mannion; Owen Teagle, Paul Killeen, Cormac Diviney; John Hanbary, Sean Sweeney, Padraic Mannion; Billy Lane, Padraig Brehony; Jason Flynn, Jonathan Glynn, Adrian Tuohy; Gerard O’Donoghue, Shane Maloney (capt), Keelan Cullinane.
Subs: Jack Carr for Cullinane (half-time), Dean Higgins for Tuohy (38 minutes), Brian Molloy for Lane (48 minutes), Michael Mullins for Flynn (54 minutes), Paul Flaherty for O’Donoghue (ninth minute of extra time), Shane Caulfield for Killeen (14th minute of extra time) and Barry Keane for Hanbary (18th minute of extra time).
Scorers: Shane Maloney (0-10, 7f), Gerard O’Donoghue (1-2), Jack Carr (0-3), Padraig Brehony and Dean Higgins (0-2) each, John Hanbary, Billy Lane, Brian Molloy and Michael Mullins (0-1) each.
Frees for: 14; wides: 15
Bookings: Shane Maloney (17 minutes) and Padraic Mannion (53 minutes).

Clare: Eibhear Quilligan (Feakle); Shane O’Brien (Clonlara), Jack Browne (Ballyea), Seadna Morey (Sixmilebridge); Jarlath Colleran (St Joseph’s), Jamie Shanahan (Sixmilebridge), Gearóid O’Connell (Ballyea); Colm Galvin (Clonlara), Tony Kelly (Ballyea, capt); Peter Duggan (Clooney-Quin), Cathal O’Connell (Clonlara), Eoin Enright (Kilmaley); Aaron Cunningham (Wolfe Tones), Oisín Hickey (Meelick), Shane O’Donnell (Éire Óg).
Subs: Shane Liddy (Newmarket) for Enright (40 minutes), Martin Moroney (Parteen) for G O’Connell (46 minutes), Damian Moloney (Meelick) for Liddy (half-time in extra time) and G O’Connell for Hickey (17th minute of extra time).
Scorers: Cathal O’Connell (0-5, 3f), Aaron Cunningham (0-4), Tony Kelly (1f) and Colm Galvin (0-3) each, Oisin Hickey (1-0), Shane O’Donnell (0-2) and Martin Moroney (0-1).
Frees for: 13; wides: 10
Bookings: Oisin Hickey (3 minutes), Jack Browne (17 minutes) and Peter Duggan (40 minutes).

Referee: Sean Cleere, Kilkenny.

Magnanimous management offer no excuses for result

By Peter O’Connell

JOINT Clare managers Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor refused any opportunity to present anything resembling an excuse for Clare’s semi-final defeat. They were adamant that Galway were simply better than Clare, even if the Munster champions were decidedly unlucky not to win it in normal time.
“In normal time we had it won; a last-minute goal and the width of an upright. That’s the way it goes. We’ve had maybe some strokes of fortune over the last two years as well,” Moloney reflected.
“I think the biggest problem for us was the sheer physicality of Galway. Their sheer size wore us down and took everything out of us to battle through for the first hour. There was very little left in the tank. They’re big men and all well able to hurl,” he said of Galway.
“We’re very proud of our team. They created history this year by winning back-to-back Munster titles. We’ve some fantastic hurlers in our midst and they’re some of the best to come out of Clare in a generation. They went down heroically today. That will stand to them in years to come. Last year’s All-Ireland loss drove us on to win the Munster this year. If we look ahead, people like Kelly, Galvin, Cunningham, Shanahan, Jack Browne; we’re going to hear an awful lot more of those. They have the most fantastic attitude. We count ourselves privileged to have worked with them,” he said.
Asked if they intend to take on the management role again next year, Moloney said it was a bit early to be quizzing them on that.
“Come and talk to us at Christmas. Gerry and myself are five years on the road between underage development squads and three years at minor.
“In fact, Gerry is eight years on the road with underage development squads. Today, ironically, while it’s painful to lose, was a good day as well because we’ve players that can perform on this pitch. And for a whole decade we haven’t had that,” he noted.
Of course now that the Clare U-21 management position is vacant, the minor management team are surely under consideration for that post?
Gerry O’Connor echoed his joint manager’s take on Clare’s defeat.
“We’ve no real excuses because we were well warned. We played Galway twice this year already. We had it well flagged that how to handle their physicality was one of the biggest challenges for us today. That’s what it proved. But Galway showed the depth of their panel as well.
“We were probably trying to regurgitate subs that we had taken off early in the second half, back on again,” he acknowledged.
“Galway probably used about eight substitutions during the course of that game, whereas we used about four. So again, the large panel really came into play,” he added.
O’Connor wasn’t interested in dwelling upon hard-luck stories or in taking from Galway.
“As far as we’re concerned the best team won. That’s always the case and always has been. We told Galway that in the dressing room. We wish them the best of luck and we hope that they win the All-Ireland now. They had to be a very good team to beat us today because we knew the value of our team coming in here. Fair play, they were better than us today,” he reiterated.
O’Connor refuted the idea that being favourites hindered Clare.
“We don’t take any notice of that at all. The odds are dictated to by Paddy Power and somebody in an accountants’ office up in Dublin. I never saw Paddy Power at a training session in Clareabbey. We don’t take any great notice of bookies’ odds. We just go out and hurl and we try and get a performance out of our lads,” he explained.