*Diarmuid Boyle and Daire Culligan. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
ABILITY TO win primary possession was the cornerstone to Clare starting off their Munster U20 football championship with a win.
Dermot Coughlan’s charges delivered an industrious display to beat Tipperary 1-16 1-11 in Páirc Naomh Mhuire, Quilty on Saturday afternoon. “I’m delighted, we’ve one home game and two away, it was important to get on the board early and to win at home is fantastic,” he reacted.
Despite playing against a strong breeze, Clare led 1-10 1-6 at half-time, they kicked 1-5 without reply, Seán Fennell landing two pointers and a goal in under two minutes.
This run enabled them to withstand the setback of conceding a soft goal to Liam Kiely on eighteen minutes, Coughlan maintained. “He kicked them against the breeze too, even though they got the goal if we were going to be unsettled that would have been the time but we didn’t get unsettled, we kept playing our game and held onto the ball, when the chance came we went for it, Seán the couple of chances he got they were on and they went over, we kicked on from there, it gave us a bit of momentum, we grew into the game after that”.
Three points was as close as Tipperary could get to Clare for the entire second half. “I was delighted with our primary ball winning today, the short kickout wasn’t really an option with the breeze, there was an awful lot of primary ball to be won and we did, we showed them the stats at half time, we were well up on the primary ball so all the fifty fifty balls we were winning and it was kicking on from there,” the Mullagh man outlined.
Over the course of the entire first half, Clare won all but two of Tipperary’s twelve kickouts. “It is where the game is won and lost, your own kickouts are important but when you start turning over their kickouts that is where you start to turn the screw, we targeted that today and it worked for us”.
“At minor level we would have played these lads a lot and they had the hex over us, we had to keep working, turn the screw and thankfully we did,” he said.
Waterford are the strongest of the four counties competing in phase one, the Kilmurry Ibrickane clubman felt. “We’ve eight or nine challenges played, we’ve sixty or seventy sessions done but if you come to championship and put in a flat performance you’re left wondering where are you going but we came and got a result. We’re in doubt about Waterford, nine of the team that beat Clare last year in Doonbeg are playing for Waterford which is leaving out some of the minors, Waterford will be one of the favourites to come out so we’re in no doubt what is coming. They are a serious team, they are probably the best of the four as regards form coming into it because I know they are going well in challenge games, I know from when we played them at minor level how tough they were and they have nine of the team which beat Clare in Doonbeg last year so we know what is coming”.
Saturday’s scheduled game with Waterford has been postponed to a later date following the tragic death of coach Jack Boddy
