*Cillian Brennan and Shane Griffin battle in the air. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE LET Wexford pull away from them too quickly and without much resistance, senior football manager Paul Madden reflected after their chances of promotion to Division 2 were dashed.
A third defeat in six games ended Clare’s aspirations of returning to the second tier in the Allianz National Football League.
Level with eighteen minutes played in Sunday’s tie with Wexford, Clare found themselves fifteen points down by the sounding of the half-time whistle, having conceded six two pointers in sixteen minutes and giving away a soft goal to Shane Doyle.
Indeed Wexford kicked three of their two pointers in less than 150 seconds as Clare’s challenge completely collapsed at the end of the first half. They rallied in the second half outscoring the visitors 2-11 0-4 but it was not enough to force a victory.
Speaking following the loss, Clare manager Paul Madden acknowledged their performance fell far short of the standards they expect. “The first twelve or fourteen minutes of the first half it was 0-4 each which wasn’t too bad, the conditions were very difficult to get the ball out, especially on kickouts. We knew they were a good team and that they had two point options, what disappointed us the most is when they got the first couple they just got presented with more and more options for two pointers all the time, the standards we set ourselves in terms of controlled aggression just wasn’t there, to a man they knew that at half time, there was a few stern words because if nothing else we want to be competitive and aggressive working hard but we didn’t have that especially when the scores went against us.
“To be fair to the lads, we were sixteen points down and we came back to a score, we had chances, we had three or four two pointer attempts, maybe two of them weren’t on and we could have managed the ball a bit better. I was proud of the way we responded in the second half but disgusted with the result”.
Space afforded to Wexford allowed them kick off their six two pointers in the opening half with ease. “We got four in the second half, it was that sort of a day for two pointers but they seemed to get theirs when they didn’t have any contact put them on when shooting, that is the frustrating part”.
From the eighteenth minute to the half-time whistle, Clare were outscored 1-14 0-2, the Ennis man voicing concern with how quickly the game fell away from them. “It is hard because in the heat of it when momentum is key in this new game, they got three two pointers in the space of two minutes, it got away from us very quickly, it was actually quite quick how it got away from us. In the second half, we got on top of them, they are a decent side, they were ahead of us on the table on scoring difference and we knew that, we’d be disappointed with a lot of the first half and parts of the second half but overall the effort and controlled aggression was a bit better in the second half, we got a bit more stuck in basically”.
To date, Clare’s most disappointing showings under Madden have been at home, namely their first half against Wexford and their entire display against Westmeath in round two. When asked why the side have struggled to make the most of home advantage in Cusack Park, he stated, “It is nothing to do with Cusack Park, it is one of the best pitches in the country so if you can’t play here it is irrelevant, it just didn’t happen for us at times today and it is nothing to do with the venue or pressure we put on ourselves for the home venue or anything like that, we’ve gone to a couple of grounds this year that notoriously we have not done well in and we’ve done well there, whatever reason we didn’t get a result here against Wexford or against Westmeath but it is nothing to do with Cusack Park”.
Dermot Coughlan was ruled out of the tie through injury, Madden confirmed he failed a fitness test on Sunday morning. “We knew coming in today. He had a fitness test this morning and he wasn’t 100 percent, this isn’t the place to be if you are not 100 percent”.
