*Joe Hayes. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLARE MINOR football manager Joe Hayes felt his side were severely punished for their struggles around the middle-third against Cork.
On Monday, Clare fell to a 25-point trouncing against a Cork side that brought an intensity to Clarecastle that the Banner were yet to come up against in this campaign.
Cork brought a pace and power which blew Clare away. “We’d a small bit of work done on them, they obviously played the Leinster League and won it. There was a couple of things there we just didn’t have answers for. Their pace, their power, we were getting destroyed on kickouts, we tried short kickouts, every time we gave away the ball they punished us. What I will say about our lads is I don’t think anyone dropped the head, I do think they kept fighting till the very end. It’s a tough one to take, and it hurts me to say it, but that’s probably just the level we’re at, at the moment, we’re not at that level, we want to be and we’re trying our best to close the gap,” Hayes told The Clare Echo
He continued, “Your own kickout is your primary possession and in fairness to Conor [Griffin], I felt he was hitting the areas we needed to hit, I just thought we were very poor on the break. Conor’s young and he’s underage again next year, I thought he played quite well, he made some very good saves and kept us in it early doors, and again I felt he was hitting his spots, he was hitting where we asked him to hit, his short ones were good. I just felt once the ball went to the ground we were second to every one of them, it’s the breaks more than the kickouts I was disappointed with. I’m not disappointed with our kickouts at all, but the Cork kickouts were excellent, their goalie had a wand of a left leg.”
Clare make the lengthy trip to Lemybrien to take on Waterford next Monday, in a game which will coincide as the Phase 1 decider. “We’ve seven days to get ready for a Daryl Darcy final. There is huge significance in that game, there’s a cup at play. Waterford have had an outstanding year to this point and it’s down there so we’re just going to have to get the bodies going again and have a cut at it, and we’ve only a couple of days to do that”.
When asked if silverware being on the line would help to lift his panel after such a heavy defeat, the ex Clare goalkeeper was hopeful that will be the case. “It should be, I hope it will be. It’s a final, they’ve beaten us already. That should hopefully help get them up for the fight again, and it possibly, depending on the result in the last game, will have significance on what phase of the All-Ireland we go into.
“They’re all factors we have to look at, but I suppose the main factor we’ve to look at is these lads are only 16-17 years of age and we’re trying to introduce them to all the levels of inter-county football. I don’t think that group have ever met that pace yet, whether it’s club, or schools, or anything and it’s possibly an eye-opener for them,” he added.
Clare were without three of their St Breckan’s contingent for the Cork clash due to a Transition Year holiday, while Tristan O’Loughlin opted to stay at home to represent the county before jetting off to join his classmates on Tuesday morning. “I want to stress as well, I’ve no issue with the boys that went, none whatsoever. They’re young, it’s a once in a lifetime trip, they were just told to make a decision, and whatever they wanted to do would be supported. It won’t be held against them in terms of selection for next week, obviously some lads came in and did well today so they might have to fight to get their space back. I wish them well, they trained Thursday, they trained Saturday morning, they were in good form.
“Tristan made the decision to stay, I thought he played quite well. You know Tristan, you know what you get with him, he never ever downed tools. I must also mention Odhran McMahon from Shannon Gaels, he decided to stay home from a family holiday as well. Again, he was told if he wanted to go there was no issue. They’re young lads, I don’t think we should be putting pressure on young lads like that. They were just told to make a decision and whatever they do there’s no problem. Tristan decided to stay, he’s flying out in the morning, he’s home Wednesday and he’ll be back training Thursday, so fair play to him, I take my hat off to him,” he concluded.
