*Fidelma Marrinan and Chloe Moloney celebrate. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
CLARE’S INTERMEDIATE ladies football side are sixty minutes from Croke Park and are confident of advancing to the decider.
Unbeaten in this year’s championship, Clare sealed their passage to the semi-finals with a merited 3-14 3-08 win over Westmeath, home advantage counting with the last eight clash played in Cusack Park.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Clare manager Wayne Freeman stated, “We fully deserved to win that game today but as always we make life difficult for ourselves especially with the ten minutes before the break. We had to regroup at half time, we didn’t panic though which is a sign of how we as a team are maturing all the time. We showed the necessary character bottle and fight required to win and that’s what quarter finals are all about. It’s about getting over the line and I’m so thrilled for everyone involved”.
A dream start for Clare saw them raid for three goals inside the opening ten minutes but by half-time the sides were level.
Freeman acknowledged that they eased up on the accelerator in the second quarter. “It was our own fault really. We took our foot off the pedal which we will need to learn from. We weren’t tagging the runners as we were in the opening fifteen minutes. They came back at us strong but we spoke about it at half time and we just said we had to up our work rate. And again I have to emphasise that we didn’t panic. We gave a superb performance in the second half considering the deteriorating conditions”.
Looking ahead to the semi-final with Antrim, the Kildare native said, “We are one game away from Croke Park. That’s where we want to be. That’s where we deserve to be. Antrim are a fine side but I’ve no doubt if we perform to our ability we can emerge victorious. A lot of their victories have been at Junior level and in the league they were a Division four outfit. That’s not taking them for granted. We know they’ll be a test. Antrim have a sharpshooter we will have to deal with but we have the best full back in the game so that’ll be some battle, one that if Siofra wins we will be in a super position”.
