*Colm Collins congratulates his Kerry counterpart Jack O’Connor at the final whistle. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE were the “architects of our own destruction” in the Munster football final, manager Colm Collins has stated.
A first provincial final since 2012 and the first of Collins’ ten championship seasons as Clare boss proved to be one to forget as Kerry outclassed them and prevailed on a score of 5-14 0-15 on Sunday.
Collins admitted that he was “very disappointed” with the Clare showing. “We played very poorly, to state the obvious. You won’t win many games conceding five goals. It was something we had done well on it up to today. Today, not so hot. I think overall, bar a few players, none of the lads would be pleased with the way they played today. Unfortunately, a poor display on the wrong day”.
With such a high mistake tally in the opening half, Clare had conceded three goals with Kerry soaking up the opportunities to tear through the opposing defence. “You can’t give away cheap possession to a team that runs and transitions so quickly and as well as they do, it is a disaster. We were the architects of our own destruction in a lot of cases in the first half but that’s it. We have three important championship games to face up to now. Just have to regroup now and get on with it,” Collins stated.
When it comes to facing the top tier counties, such mistakes are punished. “You get punished severely for your mistakes against the top teams. If you give away the ball cheap, there was too many of those instances. You have to be very mean with the ball and make sure of your passes. Overall, I don’t think many players will come off the pitch and be happy with how they played. Thankfully, they have a shot at redeeming themselves in two weeks’ time”.
He added, “You start well and you don’t give away the ball cheap. We are talking about this a long time. There will inevitably be turnovers in a match, but unforced turnovers under no pressure, they are unforgivable, they kill you at the other end. And the better teams, as I said, will punish you. But the year is far from over and we have to prepare now for a big game in two weeks time”.
As is often the case on the big day when the result goes against you, the failure to perform stood out as among the main disappointments for the Cratloe man. “In sport, you lose a lot more than you win. That’s fair enough. But the only thing you want is a proper performance, a lot of the lads will be very disappointed with the way they played, there is a lot more in them. Anyone looking at this will say it is the same oul story between Kerry and Clare but I just think we underperformed and we gifted them chances. On the day, we contributed to a lot of our own problems. Obviously they have class and class to take these chances, credit to them”.
Goal chances did fall Clare’s way in the second half, Podge Collins had an effort stopped by Shane Ryan while Ronan Lanigan found himself in a scoring zone but a sufficient opportunity did not arise to the Éire Óg defender to pull the trigger. “You need all them to go in. You need to be nailing everything. The chances we missed in the first half, they’d normally go over the bar. We wouldn’t usually be that carless with possession. Just a pity the display came on the day of a Munster final”.
While a gap exists between Kerry and Clare, Collins does not believe it is of the margin of fourteen points. “I’d like to think we could have played a lot better than that. I don’t think there is that much between the two teams. But maybe I am the only one in the country that thinks that. We needed to play really well today, and we didn’t”.
