“We Silenced Some Critics With That Performance”

Clare manager Ger O’Connell was understandably full of praise for his side after they secured a place in the quarter-finals of the All-Ireland senior camogie championship.

It came down to a winner takes all battle with Dublin to do it, and the Banner were more than ready for the task with a dominant showing to reach the last eight.

Having lost the opening round to Tipperary, the Clonlara man felt it was vital to bounce back.

“There was a lot of negative talk after our game against Tipperary and rightly so because we did not perform. The performance in the second half today is what we expect from the group. The girls put in so much effort and work and we can see that on the training field. We are trying to tell the group that you believe in them and trust in them so to see that second half was really good so hopefully the confidence will build from that. Our results have shown that we are improving. We had a decent league campaign but we were disappointed with how it ended. It was hard to know what was going to happen after the long break and having the girls coming back from their clubs with a different way of playing. It was just trying to get back into the mentality of what to do and I thought today we were much better in our shape and how we worked the ball to the forward line. I felt our workrate was also much better today than it was against Tipperary. The message before the game was just to go and work hard and see what happens after that” he said.

The impact of the subs introduced was another pleasing element for management and O’Connell outlined that reaching the next stage of the championship was a real target for the group in 2020.

“We earmarked a few girls that we wanted to come in and help out the group and we got to bring on five girls here today. We trust in what we have and we saw there today that Robyn (Conway) and Gretta (Hickey) came in and got points so it was great to see that. It is all about building their confidence and making sure they just go and enjoy themselves. It is great to be here in Fr McNamara Park too because a lot of work has gone on here so it was nice to defend our home grounds. At the start of the year, you always have your goals and your aims and number one for us was to get out of the championship group no matter what. It hasn’t been done in a while and that is nothing against any of the previous managements, it is just a hard thing to do to get to a quarter final. No matter who we play, we will go and enjoy it. Goal one is achieved and we can go now and just have a right cut at this quarter-final” he stated.