*Clare captain Caoimhe Harvey in action against Emily Bailey. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
CLARE LADIES football captain, Caoimhe Harvey is fully focused on recording back to back wins in the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate championship.
Wayne Freeman’s charges began their championship campaign with a 1-17 1-12 win over Offaly in Clara on Sunday and welcome Wicklow to Cusack Park for the second round this coming Sunday.
Captain Caoimhe Harvey gave a wonderful player of the game performance in their five point win. She said their attention was firmly switched on beginning with a victory. “You come here for the three points and thankfully that’s what we got today. In the group stages you have to get off to a good start and we have that vital first win on board. We try to improve all the time and that is all we can do. We just have to get better week on week until the round robin stage is over. If we can do that we will be ready for the knockout stages”.
Fidelma Marrinan’s sin-binning forced Clare to work harder, the West Clare Gaels clubwoman maintained. “Often teams come together when you go down to fourteen players and it’s up to us as a team how we look at it. We knew we had to support Fidelma while she was off. We had to just mark up, increase our work rate. Credit to all the girls for the work they put in and we actually dominated for that spell. Sometimes missing a player you can gather more space and that’s what we did. We nearly and probably should have had three goals when we were missing a player. Most importantly though we got the all important first goal which gave us a cushion”.
Offaly’s return of 1-03 over the course of ten minutes did pile some pressure on Clare but the Querrin native noted how Clare continued to make good use of possession. “Every team on every day out will have a purple patch and Offaly are no different. They came at us for a spell and got some good scores but we dominated possession. We just have to learn to be more clinical when the opportunity presents itself. We are still learning as a team and game management is important. Wayne is always on about it. It’s something that we have to work on but we will work on it and as I said get better as the group stages progress”.
Division Four side Wicklow travel to Ennis this weekend and Caoimhe stressed the importance of Clare putting together another winning performance. “Every game in the championship is serious stuff no matter who you face. You can’t take anything or any team for granted. All teams put in huge effort so we have to just concentrate on our own work rate and our own performance. Whether we win by three points or twenty three points it’s all about winning and getting the result. We will rest and get focused for Wicklow next week. They will come and throw everything at us but we are really looking forward to playing at home and it’s always good to play in Cusack Park. We just have to get the result. That’s what it’s all about”.
