Clare hurling fans who made the long journey to Fraher field in Dungarvan last evening for the Munster Minor Hurling Championship play-off with Waterford, while disappointed that it proved to be a wasted journey, agreed that the right decision was made by referee Anthony Sherlock and his officials in calling off the fixture.

“Of course we are disappointed that we have no game after making the long journey but there is no doubt but that the correct decision was made. The safety of the players must be foremost and there was just no way that a game could be played in those gale-force winds,” Clare manager Eamonn Fennessy told The Clare Champion.

The Tipperary official made his decision because of the gale-force winds, which all considered very dangerous. A pitch inspection had taken place earlier in the afternoon, when the grounds was deemed playable.

A new date has not yet been announced but it’s expected to be at least two weeks, as the minor football championship will dominate proceedings over the next week.

It is expected that a meeting of the Munster council CCC will finalise a new date for the game over the coming days. Cork await the winners in the provincial semi-final on June 26 and should Clare manage to get through to that stage, the game will be played in Cusack Park, Ennis.

Top scorer against Cork in last week’s first round, Bobby Duggan was not in the starting line-up for last evening’s fixture, due to a hand injury he picked up in Cork but it was expected that he would play some part in the game.

Rebels punish minors’ mistakes

Cork   3-15        Clare     2-14

Mistakes proved costly for Clare when they took on Cork at Pairc Uí Rinn in the opening round of the championship on Thursday evening of last week. Eight points down after six minutes, Clare looked to be in line for a hammering but they fought back superbly and were three points in front when the half-time whistle sounded.

Clare again started badly when the second half got underway and this, together with a number of puck outs going astray, saw them four points adrift when the final whistle sounded.

“Mistakes cost us on the night. We knew coming down that Cork were going to take a big game to us. They did the same thing last year in Ennis. We stuck with it and started grinding our way back into the game. At half-time we knew we were able to hurl with them but we made silly mistakes in the early part of the second half.

“Some puck outs went astray, balls we were catching in the first half weren’t going to hand and that’s costly against a team like Cork. At this level, you have to get it first time and get away from them and when we did that, it wasn’t an issue,” Clare manager Eamonn Fennessy told The Clare Champion after the game.

“Lads seemed to rush shots, they were anxious to put the game away and you can take the positives out of that; they were anxious to get on the ball. We were disappointed with the wides but you could not fault them for effort. It’s a big occasion for a lot of these fellas. They were up against a big, powerful, physical team. There are going to be periods when fatigue would settle in because they were getting hard hits out there. In fairness to them, they regrouped and kept battling to the end and you couldn’t ask for a more honest performance for the players,” he said.

A superb goal from Bobby Duggan started Clare’s fight-back. The Clarecastle teenager grabbed possession from a puck out and soloed past a number of Cork defenders, before crashing the ball to the net.
A foul on Duggan led to Clare’s second goal as he blasted the resultant 20m penalty to the net.

A series of blunders by the defence led to Cork’s third goal, which came from Pa O’Callaghan two minutes into the second half. The sides were level five times between this and the 20th minute after which Cork edged ahead and outscored Clare, 0-5 to 0-1, in the remaining time.

Cork: Patrick Collins; Shane O’Brien, Killian O’Connor, Kieran Histon; Mark O’Keeffe, Conor Twomey, Cathal Cormack; Michael Cahalane, Richard Cahalane; Peter Kelleher (0-2), Kevin O’Neill (0-2), Trevor Horgan (0-3); Aaron Ward, Pa O’Callaghan (2-6), Anthony Spillane (1-1).
Subs: Mark O’Connor (0-1) for O’Keeffe; Sean Hayes for Ward; Sean Burke for Hayes.
Clare: Liam Corbett; Shane O’Leary David McCarthy, Niall Bolton; Aidan McGuane (capt), Eoin Tuohy (0-1), Shane Gleeson; David Conroy, Ciarán Downey (0-1), Bobby Duggan (2-8, 1-6f), Ian Galvin (0-2) Stephen Ward; Conor Deasy, David Begley (0-2), Cian Moloney.
Subs: Alex Morey for Galvin; Mark Lynch for Moloney; Oisín Donnellan for Conroy.
Referee: John O’Brien, Tipperary.