The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
MOST people watching the All-Ireland felt Clare were clearly the better team, but Cork’s top scorer got a little tetchy with journalists on the subject following the game.
“We got three goals; ye’re criticising us all year for not getting goals, we get three and ye’re saying they’re better than us. What are ye on about like?” Pa Horgan asked with a laugh.
An unfortunate reporter asked the Glen Rovers forward if the occasion had got to Cork and was met with a fairly blunt dismissal. “Why’s that? We were up by a point boy, how did it get to us? We were two seconds away from winning an All-Ireland; I don’t know what ye’re blowing on about really.”
Horgan did acknowledge that things were not looking good during the second half, with Clare streaking away from the Rebels.
“With about 15 or 20 minutes to go I thought it was going to be tough enough for us. They were really on top at the time, but we’ve great fight in the team and we’ve been doing it all year. We pulled it back and they were lucky to draw it in the end.”
Things might have looked bleak for Cork at one stage, but with two minutes of injury time gone, he felt they had at least one hand on Liam McCarthy.
“Definitely, yeah. We got the point and when we got the sideline down in the corner the two minutes were up, so if you get the ball out of play you should be winning really. But Clare were always going to get a chance and they took it when they got it.”
With Clare having deployed Pat Donnellan as a sweeper in the quarter and semi-finals, it was expected they would go with something similar again last Sunday.
That never happened but Horgan claimed they hadn’t based all their plans on Clare setting up as they had done in the earlier rounds. “Not really, no. They set up for an open game of hurling because they’re a fast team, moving everywhere.”
He felt the full-forward line had been starved for long spells but had finally got the service required.
“There wasn’t much happening inside really but in the last ten minutes when the ball started coming in, the boys made use of it. We’re delighted when it comes in, we’ll do a bit with it but we can’t do anything if it’s not coming in.”
Horgan, who scored 10 points, feels both sides have some room for improvement. “They (Clare) played well, they’re going to play better than that the next time and we’re going to play better as well, so it’s going to be another cracker in three weeks.”
Owen Ryan
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked for a number of other regional titles in Limerick, Galway and Cork.
