*Clare coach, Brendan Bugler.
WITHOUT a win in their two outings of the Munster championship, Clare’s hurlers find themselves in knockout territory.
On Sunday, Clare lost out to Waterford for the first in the Munster championship since 2016. Clare’s management were annoyed with the decision to award the Déise a penalty on forty two minutes but they acknowledged the Banner’s display was not good enough.
Clare coach Brendan Bugler felt the call by referee Chris Mooney to penalise Adam Hogan and give a penalty to Waterford with forty three minutes was a turning point in the game. “The awarding of a penalty to Waterford was a big call, particularly when you take into consideration the frees we didn’t get. Peter (Duggan) and Shane Meehan found it hard to win frees when they were pulled and dragged all over the place and when you see what the penalty was given for it’s a little hard to take”.
Speaking in Walsh Park shortly after Clare’s eight point loss to Waterford, the 2013 All-Ireland winning wing back said, “it’s very disappointing We came down here with the intention of winning the game but we didn’t and its knock out championship from here on”.
Clare’s first quarter was poor, the Whitegate clubman noted. “We wouldn’t be happy with our first quarter, it was 0-9 0-3 to them but, in fairness, we turned it around in the second quarter to go in three down at half time having, not particularly, being hurling great. There was a strong wind there and one would have felt we were in a decent position. It wasn’t to be. We didn’t perform well”, he lamented.
In Brendan’s view “the second goal was a killer. The wind came against us twice. We dropped two short and we got two points while they dropped one short in the second half and they got a goal. They got the rub of the green”.
That said Bugler noted that “Waterford had a pretty good campaign last year even though they didn’t get out of Munster. We only beat them by a point and they had a decent campaign down here. They are not a bad team by any means and they showed that today. Every team in Munster is capable of coming out. We just have to go and win our next two games, it’s as simple as that”.
Agreeing that the “swirling wind was difficult” he said “look, it was the same for both teams and on the day Waterford’s efficiency was better than ours”
Concluding he said “we now face a massive game against Tipperary. We will go now and analyse their games against Limerick and Cork. It’s a huge game and we expect a big crowd in Cusack Park. We have to go and deliver now”.
