*Clare are without star man Diarmuid Stritch. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
AN IMPROVED conversion rate is among the main targets for Clare’s U20 hurlers as they go in search of their first championship win this season.
Terence Fahy’s charges make the journey to Cappoquin Logistics Fraher Field to face Waterford at 7pm this evening (Wednesday).
For this tie, they are without their best player in last week’s draw to Cork with Diarmuid Stritch ruled out with injury. Fred Hegarty’s suspension has been rescinded which sees him retain his place in the side while Corofin’s James Organ a starter on last year’s panel enters the first fifteen in the absence of Stritch.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Fahy was adamant that Clare will have to improve on their efficiency in front of goal. “We’d be happy with some aspects of it, we’d be disappointed with our conversion rate, we’re disappointed that our shooting was poor because we left a lot of scores out there,” he reflected of their first round draw.
Fahy continued, “We got a result, we were lucky to get a result in the end, we went out of the game for twenty minutes in the second half significantly but we stayed in the game, I’m delighted the lads found a way to stay in the game when we went a man down and faced a lot of challenges, we hit an awful lot of wides. A lot of focus will go on the free we missed at the end but we had missed so many chances before that so it didn’t ultimately come down to that”.
He said, “We had twenty scoring chances in the first half, they had twelve, in the second half we didn’t have as many chances but they came into the game in a big way and we left a lot of scores out there. We struggled to get any result against Cork in recent years, we got a result against them here, it is round robin so it is quite volatile, we expect that, we’re up and running”.
With a strong start, Clare managed to create a five point lead against Cork, one which was undone by a John Wiggington Barrett goal. “We made a good start, the boys were causing danger when we got ball into them, we didn’t punish, they were very clinical, they got one chance for a goal and they took it, that came them in the match, it was a one score game at half time”.
