Kerry 2-22
Clare 1-5

CLARE’S 19-point loss to Kerry was their biggest defeat to The Kingdom since their 9-21 to 1-9 Munster championship hammering in Miltown 33 years ago.

 

No matter how much anybody involved tries to gloss over it, Clare football is well and truly mired in mediocrity from which there doesn’t appear to be any plan or ambition to escape. This is something that more than the Clare management and players are responsible for. The county board and clubs are also culpable. The board’s job is to direct Clare football, which results and performances clearly indicate they are not doing, while clubs are not producing enough footballers of inter-county standard.
Losing Saturday evening’s fourth round qualifier wasn’t much of a disappointment. Let’s be honest about it, nobody expected Clare to win. What was a reasonable expectation though was that Clare would show some fight, collective pride, resolve and unity. None of these traits surfaced in the Gaelic Grounds.
Once Kerry stepped it up after 20 minutes, Clare heads hung and the fight went out of them. That’s the biggest criticism that can be levelled at Clare, not that they lost. It was the manner of their defeat which indicates that, despite their league run and reasonable showing against Cork, when Kerry began to play, Clare compliantly stood by and didn’t raise a whimper.
Let’s not dwell too long on the match statistics although one or two are worth noting. Not a single starting Clare forward scored from play. Ger Quinlan kicked two points from midfield while David Russell at least got stuck in when introduced 20 minutes from time for Alan Clohessy. Showing that he was one of the exceptions to the ‘no pride’ suggestion, Russell tried to take the game to Kerry and scored 1-1 while he was at it.
Kerry led 0-12 to 0-3 at half time although Clare were just 0-4 to 0-3 behind after 19 minutes. Quinlan scored his two points during this spell while David Tubridy put over the first of his three frees after Quinlan had been fouled.
Once Colm Cooper fisted Kerry 0-5 to 0-3 up, Kerry took over and added seven more unanswered scores. During this period Clare lost seven of their own kick-outs, which underlines Kerry’s midfield dominance.
Two minutes before half time, Graham Kelly replaced Shane McGrath. The Miltown man was soon trudging angrily towards the sideline having been substituted 17 minutes into the second half. Kelly had been yellow carded and was taken off on the basis that he was likely to be shown a second yellow. Like Russell and Quinlan, Kelly at least put himself about and gave his all for the jersey. He may well have earned a second yellow if he had been left on but the Clare management knew well that this was a possibility when they put him on. He should have been left on as Clare needed every driven man they could find to must some type of opposition to Kerry.
Paul Galvin’s early second half point meant that all six Kerry forwards had scored from play while James O’Donoghue’s goal four minutes later, established a 1-15 to 0-3 Kerry lead.  Now it was embarrassing for Clare. Only for Russell’s 1-1 and a couple of Tubridy frees, the scoreline would have been starker still.
Paul Galvin’s second yellow card and subsequent sending off resulted a bit of badly needed excitement, as even the Kerry supporters had grown bored of what was a last 12 qualifier.
Tactically Clare were more defensive early in the game but once Kerry worked their way into it, Clare’s tactical approach melted as did any hope they might have had of making a game of it.

 

Kerry: Brendan Kealy; Marc O’Sé, Aidan O’Mahony, Shane Enright; Tomás O’Sé, Eoin Brosnan, Killian Young; Anthony Maher, Bryan Sheehan; Paul Galvin, Declan O’Sullivan, Donnchadh Walsh; James O’Donoghue, Colm Cooper (captain), Kieran Donaghy.
Subs: Darran O’Sullivan for Donnchadh Walsh, Kieran O’Leary for Declan O’Sullivan, Johnny Buckley for Anthony Maher, Barry John Keane for James O’Donoghue, Jonathan Lyne for Killian Young.
Scorers: Colm Cooper (1-4); James O’Donoghue (1-3); Bryan Sheehan (0-4f); K Donaghy (0-3); Declan O’Sullivan, Kieran O’Leary (0-2 each); Marc Ó Sé, Anthony Maher, Paul Galvin, Donnchadh Walsh (0-1 each).
Wides: 8 Frees: 19 45s: 1
Yellow card: Paul Galvin   Red card: Paul Galvin

Clare: Joe Hayes; Kevin Hartnett, Barry Duggan, Laurence Healy; Enda Coughlan, Gordon Kelly, John Hayes; Gary Brennan, Ger Quinlan; Shane Brennan, Shane McGrath, Alan Clohessy (captain); Rory Donnelly, David Tubridy, Michael O’Shea.
Subs: Graham Kelly for Shane McGrath (33), Niall Browne for Michael O’Shea (half time), David Russell for Alan Clohessy (50), Conor Talty for Graham Kelly (53).
Scorers: David Russell (1-1); David Tubridy (0-3f); Ger Quinlan (0-2).
Wides: 8 Frees: 23
Yellow cards: Alan Clohessy, Gordon Kelly, Graham Kelly.

Referee: Maurice Deegan (Laois).

 

Time to spin that broken record once again

Comment

IT’S that time of year again. The Clare footballers season jolts to an ignominious halt, which is followed by a bit of baleful analysis.
After that everyone forgets about it until next January when Cooraclare or Miltown stage the first round of the McGrath Cup and the charade kicks off again.
What will help the ‘forgetting about it’ process is the fact that the senior football championship throws in on Friday.
Come Sunday evening anybody who plays, is involved with or follows their club team will have completely forgotten about Clare’s 19-point defeat. It won’t be a matter of further conjecture simply because not many people in Clare are interested in how the county senior footballers fare.
These include people who play club football and who administrative at club level. That’s where their interest in the development of football ceases.
Only the Clare panel, their management and a small circle of committed activists know how much work they have poured into 2012, without making any meaningful progress. The rest of us are commenting from afar and are using what we’ve seen Clare produce in championship as evidence.
That evidence is being used to beat Clare football with and, well there’s plenty of evidence that’s impossible to argue with.
So are any straightforward steps, which if taken, might lead to some improvement in the state of Clare football?
Yes there are. One would be to ensure that clubs play more football during the summer months. Round 8 of the Kerry county league was played last Sunday, something that is a regular occurrence in Kerry on the weekend of inter-county championship matches involving The Kingdom. County players don’t line out all of the time but the games go ahead anyway. Clare clubs should at least consider playing some league matches without their county players. If this were to happen clubs would get more games and this would lead a gradual increase in standards. In that instance the seven round Cusack or Garry Cup could be increased to 14 rounds, starting much earlier in the year and running through the Summer, interspersed with championship.
Mention of championship, while clubs have known for months that the first round was due this coming weekend, a couple of championship games might have sharpened Clare for Munster championship and All-Ireland qualifier games.
For years Clare GAA administrators have put county before club in terms of the fixture calendar. Surely they should see that has led to a significant decrease in standards? Not alone has the county football championship yet to start, neither has the U/21, intermediate or junior. It’s now the first week in August and not a single adult footballer in Clare has yet to play a minute of club championship football.
How do we think that’s the way forward? In contrast the Kerry U/21 football final will be played on this Thursday evening while two rounds of the Kerry county championship have been played. Their junior and intermediate championships are well advanced.
Here in Clare every time a team reaches a Munster final a county board meeting is called as the respective management teams try to have club fixtures amended or called off to suit their needs. This habit has done nothing for the promotion of football in Clare, although you wouldn’t blame the county management teams for trying to change fixtures to suit their requirements. If they think there’s a chance, why not? After all they will be judged on how their team gets on.
The ‘state of Clare football’ record is one that is given a spin at about this time every year. It’s getting repetitive and the development of Clare football at county level is in crisis. It’s just that nobody appears too bothered.
This weekend parochial concerns will be the focus of attention and by the time county final day rolls around next October, any mention of what happened on the Saturday evening, July 28, will be met with a puzzled silence.

 

McDermott undecided on his future

PRESSED as to whether he is interested in managing the Clare footballers in 2013 Micheál McDermott was non-committal in the aftermath of Saturday’s defeat.
Asked again on Monday if he had any thoughts on his managerial future, McDermott, who has been in the post for three seasons, hadn’t changed his outlook.
“I haven’t even thought about it. All Micheál McDermott wants now is a break from thinking about football. When you’re involved in county football the one thing that suffers big time is your family life,” he told The Clare Champion.
McDermott says his priority in the coming fortnight is to spend more time with his family. 
“You make huge sacrifices for football ahead of family. Over the next two weeks in particular, I won’t even be thinking about football because my young lad Paul has qualified for the showjumping at the RDS. that is a big, big achievement for him. I wasn’t there for him all year long and I intend to be there for him over the next two weeks. Maybe after that it will be time to think about football again,” he said.
Speaking on Saturday night, McDermott said he wanted to park football talk for a few days.
“After a defeat like tonight you just want to put your head down and forget about football for four or five days. I’m not making any decision here because you have to be respectful to the players and to the county board.
“Tonight’s not the night to talk about anything else but the hurt of losing. I’m a terrible loser. I take defeats really, really tough. I put my heart and soul into Clare over the last three years and I’ve given it everything that you could possibly give,” he said.
As for the 19-point loss to Kerry, McDermott was extremely disappointed with Clare’s innings. Clare appeared to have adopted more of a defensive strategy in the opening 20 minutes, although McDermott denied this.
“It wasn’t that we changed our game plan. That was exactly the same game plan we had for Cork, but the way Cork broke so fast from midfield it was difficult to get the wing-forwards back into position. Kerry were different. They were hitting long balls. That helped us get our half-forward line back but that sort of game takes an awful lot of energy out of the players and it’s maybe hard to get back up the field,” he suggested.
“We just didn’t take our game to the table at all. All over the field we were in trouble from 15 minutes into the game. Kerry played really, really well tonight and we had no answer to their power, their pace and their football. All over the field they were hurting us. There was no area of the field we were winning and you have to give credit to Kerry for that,” McDermott stated.
Playing Division 4 league football, he feels, is of no help to Clare come championship. 
“Kerry’s tackling was ferocious and they don’t let you even get an opportunity to look up. That’s probably what we learned out of tonight. You don’t see that in Division 4 and unless you’re playing the top teams you don’t learn how to cope with it,” McDermott reflected.

 

Frustrated Brennan laments team’s lack of fight

Midfielder Gary Brennan made no attempt to disguise his deep frustration and regret at how his county’s 13th All-Ireland qualifier since 2001 had panned out.
If Clare were to compete with Kerry they needed the Clondegad midfielder and Ger Quinlan to rule the middle of the Gaelic Grounds but, instead, Anthony Maher and Bryan Sheehan controlled that area of the Ennis Road field.
“We’re very disappointed. We’ve let a lot of people down, people who have supported us all year,” Brennan told The Clare Champion.
“We’ve put in a lot of effort all year but I don’t think that performance reflected the effort or the work we’ve put in. Unfortunately that’s what everyone sees and that’s where you have to produce it. There was a lot of talk about playing more defensively after the Cork game. We did it a lot more today but the end result was the same. Maybe we need to focus on what is best for Clare and not what other counties are doing. Develop our own style and get lads believing in the jersey,” the St Flannan’s secondary school teacher suggested.
Brennan feels the negative climate pervading Clare football makes it even more difficult to make any inroads.
“There’s a lot of negativity around. It’s very hard to get lads believing in themselves when that’s there. Until we get lads believing in themselves, we’ll be trouble. There’ll be a huge amount of negativity around us again I suppose but we just have to put our heads down and build for next year again. There’s a lot of disappointment this year but obviously there’s positives as well. We won our first championship game since 2008 and we blooded a lot of new players. Fellas are getting a lot older, wiser and stronger,” Brennan pointed out.
He didn’t take any solace from the fact that Clare played both Cork and Kerry in three of their 2012 championship games.
“Still you’d be looking for more fight than we had in us today. We definitely felt today there was potential for an ambush but we never got on the front foot at all. We’ll look ahead to January again although it’s hard to look at it today,” the despondent Clare midfielder reflected.