‘There was a lot of pressure’ – Mulqueen

SELECTOR Louis Mulqueen agreed there was pressure on Clare going into Sunday’s championship tilt with Waterford. “Coming into the game, it was all potential, Clare hadn’t won a championship game in five years, yes, there was a lot of pressure that way. We knew and had confidence in these fellas that if they performed, we would do well. We started out of the blocks brilliantly, we went four points to no score up, then one or two mistakes were seriously punished, a goal and two points came from those mistakes.”

The Ennis man acknowledged that going in at half-time, the team was disappointed. “They had beaten us well in the half-forward and half-back lines and we knew we had to put that right. We weren’t getting on the breaks.  Players were disappointed in themselves and got their heads around that. We had to stop their half-backs and half-forwards dominating. The turnaround was serious. Our half-backs took control. We won possession and we started getting on the scoreboard. I knew once we drew level, these lads would pull away.”

“These are a great bunch, they are serious hurlers and they are developing. It takes calmness on the field, playing championship games in the heat of battle to develop experience. You can’t buy that, you have to let them do it and today they learned a lot.” Mulqueen warned that the team is no further than last year. “We are in semi-final this year with a game under our belts, we were there last year without a game. Today’s win will boost confidence and the lads will learn from it. There is lots of fine tuning still needed, we need to be getting on the breaks, they know it’s in them, the workrate, getting on the breaks more, more composure,” he said.

According to the Rice College school principal, “They don’t care who they are playing, it could be Kilkenny, Tipp, Galway. They just want to perform and play to their potential. That’s the great thing I see in them”.

“There was a lot of pressure today. Waterford going for a fourth out of five Munster finals, they had nine Munster medal winners on the pitch. We were going with a young developing team. You couldn’t put money on us. I could not understand that. Now that thing of winning a Munster Championship game is gone,” he said.
Looking to the semi-final, he said, “Cork are smitten from the loss of the relegation play-off. It’s a battle and a challenge we will be up for. We will focus on the semi-final. We need to improve. Confidence amongst the young lads from winning this will be a big thing. We should see better hurling in semi-final,” he concluded.