‘Tipp will eat you up ’ – O’Loughlin

“CONCENTRATION cost us,” sighed Clare manager Ger O’Loughlin after suffering defeat to Tipperary. “We got a great start and could not have asked for better. We looked awful sharp and very committed. We played to the plan. We man marked and did it well but concentration cost us as we saw with the ball coming in that Corbett got on to. It was naïve stuff and we need to learn from it. Tipp will eat you up if you give them an opportunity. Conceding four goals is too much. However, we take a lot of positives out of it.”
He added, “They deserved to beat us but we contributed to our own downfall. I hate going away saying we were proud because we still lost, which is disappointing. Somewhere along the way, we have to turn the corner and start winning these games. That one was there. If you score 1-19, you would nearly expect to come away with a victory.”
“We must build on this. People are asking what sort of response we are going to get. There will only be a toss of a coin in it. If we regroup and realise that we have potential, there is no reason why we won’t get a run in the qualifiers. We are at a crossroads, the team is at a crossroads. It’s a case of seeing can we turn the corner. If we do, we are going places. It’s frustrating. The next outing will be important for the development of the team. We have to take all the positives and realise that anything under what we showed today and we won’t beat Galway,” according to the Clarecastle man.
The manager expressed concern at the timing of the club championship in May. “We had two to three lads playing today that were only 75% fit because of injuries picked up in club games and it’s something we have to address in Clare. There is no possible way we can play two rounds of the club championship in May and let lads off for the guts of the month. We picked up four injuries from it. I know from being involved with club teams that we demand that the players are with us at club level but somewhere, somebody will have to sit down and look at this. Nicky O’Connell, Darach Honan and Liam Markham have all come back with club games and we had to let them sit on the sideline. Markham was able to train with a broken finger but he missed out on the hurling. We have to learn from that and we can’t continue to do that,” he said.
O’Loughlin again availed of the opportunity to call for a restructuring of the league. “We showed we can play against the likes of Tipp and we held our own in a couple of the challenge games. It would make for better-quality teams if we had a 1A and 1B in the league. You are trying to develop teams and you really can’t do that in Division 2. Fellas are coming half-hearted to games. You are learning nothing from winning by 25 points. Then you come up against Limerick or Offaly. If you are playing them week in and week out, teams might learn more,” he argued.
“The qualifier is vital,” Sparrow added. “If we lose, we are gone. Our whole season depends on it. We thought we might be able to put one over on Tipp today. Not many held this view but we did. The qualifiers take on a huge importance now. We didn’t think much about them before now. It would have been wrong to do that before the championship. We will have a serious cut now.”
“We have a huge obstacle. Galway are the wounded animal and they will come out strong. We have to take all that on board. If we play as we did today we will give most counties a game. We are all disappointed with the result but they (players) are talking positive about the qualifiers,” he concluded.