*Clare wing back Matthew O’Halloran. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
RECORDING home victories in successive outings is a huge plus for the Clare U20 hurlers as they head on the road for the remainder of the championship.
For the second time in the tenure of Terence Fahy and the first since 2024, Clare won both of their home outings in the Munster U20 championship.
Fred Hegarty’s late goal helped Clare defeat Waterford 1-10 0-12 while round two on Wednesday saw them overcome Limerick on a margin of three points, 0-18 0-15.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Fahy said it was important to win both home games. “I’m hugely proud of the group and delighted for them that we get out of Clare with four points and we’re going on the road now”.
Once again, Clare made hard work of things which the Whitegate native acknowledged. “We normally do! It’s Limerick versus Clare in the Munster championship round robin so there’s normally nothing between us in all our experiences against them, on paper you might say this or that but it is Limerick vs Clare at the end of the day. I’m delighted that we edged it and nudged it at the death, there was some conviction from our team”.
He felt round two was an improvement on their opening encounter against Waterford. “All of our stats and analysts were happy that we were using the ball better, we weren’t putting it up on the board but our use of the ball was better, we had less turnovers and we weren’t fumbling as much ball, we were more secure in our play so the graph is going up”.
Clare’s full back line of Eoghan Gunning, Robert Loftus and Joe Casey was their strongest line on the field for the second game on the bounce. “We have very good backs, a very good goalkeeper and very good backs, we need to improve and get better as we move up the field, we’re in a great position to get into that now over the next number of weeks”.
Both James Hegarty and James Cullinan remained sidelined are unlikely to be in a starting berth until later in the campaign, Terence noted. “James Cullinan has a serious injury, he will be challenged to get back, James Hegarty has a couple of weeks, they both suffered serious injuries and are a few weeks off”.
