*Ger O’Connell. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
LETTING THE foot off the gas was a common theme for Clare’s minor hurlers according to manager Ger O’Connell.
Clare’s nine point loss to Limerick on Saturday in the All-Ireland quarter-finals brought the curtain down on their campaign for 2026.
Level heading into the final quarter at 0-12 apiece, Limerick powered ahead with Shane Waters and Rian Horgan scoring goals as the Treaty County scored an unanswered 2-3 with Clare failing to register a score for twenty four minutes.
O’Connell told The Clare Echo, “It was a great pity the way the game ended. Even going in at half-time, we felt that we had the chances to be a lot closer than we were to Limerick. We had three good goal chances and an outstanding save just before the break that would have made a huge difference.
“Overall though it’s hard to argue with Limerick’s scoring efficiency that was almost 80% whereas ours was just in the high thirties as at this stage of the championship you simply have to take your chances. We were still happy enough at half-time and just needed to up our scoring efficiency which we did. Limerick got the first point to extend the gap to five but we tore into it and were really good and got back level which was fantastic.
“But we just couldn’t get ahead and then they sucker-punched us with the goal. The most disappointing this for us is that it just has seemed to be a trend in most of our games where we’ve gotten ourselves back into a game and then for whatever reason we just take out foot off the pedal and teams tend to do damage when we do drop off even a small bit,” he added.
Across their six championship games, Clare finished with four defeats. “Overall, when we look back over the entire campaign, we’ve used 31 players in championship which is great to get these lads playing in stadiums such as Semple Stadium, Cusack Park and Páirc Ui Rinn,” the Clonlara clubman stated.
All-Ireland finalists last season, O’Connell said it isn’t possible for the county to be winning provincial and national titles every year. “Unfortunately we were just a bit off this year but the players did everything we asked them to do and have done it to the best if their ability which is all you can ask. They’re a fantastic team to be around and involved with but the great thing is that this is a development system.
“I mean, I’d be the first to want to win a Munster or All-Ireland Minor Championship every year but look, that’s just not possible and every year you’ve a different group coming through with different strengths and it’s up to us as management to find a way to play that suits that particular group best. So we tried to do the best we could with them. Obviously we were lucky to get out of Munster with the way the results fell for us but it was also great that these lads got to experience the All-Ireland series for themselves and also got to win against Dublin”.
Failing to score for the final twenty four minutes was inexcusable, he acknowledged. “We’’re really disappointed with how it ended against Limerick because we were there-or-thereabouts going into the last quarter but then not to score for twenty minutes is almost criminal”.
O’Connell concluded, “We really missed players like Ian O’Brien and Fionn Plunkett who just got inured at the wrong time for us but it just wasn’t to be for us this year and we wish the Celtic Challenge boys all the very best in their All-Ireland Final against Limerick on Saturday”.
