Aaron Griffin carries the ball beyond Daniel Lyons on the way to getting Clare’s first goal. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE senior football manager Peter Keane was frustrated with big decisions in their two point loss to Sligo but readily admitted their performance was too flat.
Having ended Kildare’s unbeaten streak, Clare’s senior footballers let a chance to go joint top of Division 3 in the Allianz National Football League slip through their fingers when suffering a 1-19 2-14 defeat to Sligo.
Speaking following the game, Keane acknowledged that his side were struggling on the road having lost their only other away game, which was against Antrim in the first round. “We had something similar above in the opening day against Antrim, is it the travel I don’t know, sometimes when you have a high like we did after the game against, Kildare last week, sometimes you can end up with a relatively flat performance the following week but you know that said, we turned in a very good last quarter so we were we were happy with that”.
He added, “you start out initially hoping you’re going to win your home games and thus far we have but then you got to pick up something away and that decides where you’re going to end up in the table at the end of it”.
Keane was annoyed with some of the decisions which he felt went against Clare. “We lost the game, no matter what chaos went on before us, we were just unlucky, we could have scraped a draw at the very death, Dermot Coughlan’s two pointer just went very marginally wide, we were very flat in the first half and that probably set the tone for the game. We fought very, very well in the last quarter, really went after the game. I suppose we were unfortunate with a couple of decisions that didn’t go our way, so we’re disappointed but we come again next Saturday night against Laois”.
Among them was a seventy first minute goal by Ikem Ugwueru which was deemed to be a square ball. “I didn’t see much wrong with it but it was the referee’s call, he has umpires with him and it is what it is”.
Keelan Sexton’s black card on fifty two mintues was another source of contention for the Kerry man. “It was a big blow and we were down a man in very warm conditions, it was very warm today, it was all hands on deck, it was unfortunate to lose a man”.
He continued, “They had a good third quarter and we had a good fourth quarter, we were down two points at half time and we lost the game by two points, you could say it was evenly shared but we had a goal which we felt was a good goal, it went against us, we had a black card which was a funny one”.
Sligo were always going to pose a stiff challenge, the Clare manager stated. “We were obviously very aware that Sligo were going to be fighting for everything and I mentioned that even last week, Sligo were seven points up with five minutes to go last week, they should’ve won that game last week last weekend, and they would have been disappointed and they had a home game, so one point last week, two today which gives them three points, they need somewhere between three and four out of the last two games to survive and they are a very good team, they’re a very good team. They should have beaten Galway in the championship here last year, they’re no bad team, it’s just results weren’t going their way in the early part of the league”.
Wins against Laois and Offaly will keep promotion to Division 2 within Clare’s grasp but Keane was avoiding such talk. “Not so sure about that. I haven’t done a whole while thinking about that but we’ve a game next weekend against Laois and we’ve to go and try win that game”.
Ronan Lanigan has been an absent figure for the duration of the league. When asked about the potential availability of the Éire Óg defender, Keane said, “It could be touch and go next weekend. Could be touch and go next weekend. Like, he’s not that far away, but it’s just to get fitness into him now”.
Seán McAllister missed out on the Sligo game having lined out for the U20s who lost to Waterford the day previous, both he and Evan Cahill are expected to be with the U20s and not the seniors this Saturday. “The boys travelled with us, they came up last night after the game we brought Evan (Cahill) on as you saw, Seán picked up a bit of a knock so we weren’t going to risk him in that because he has a game again next weekend”.
