‘Lacklustre second half’ leaves Clare U20s in real championship battle

*Maurice Walsh. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill. 

CLARE’S U20 footballers have left themselves with an uphill battle after suffering a shock loss to Waterford in Doonbeg on Saturday.

Waterford recorded their first win since 2021 in the U20 Munster football championship after scoring four goals in the second half to defeat Clare 4-12 2-15.

Concentration levels dropped for Clare after a blistering start to the second half where they scored 2-1 in the first four minutes, said manager Maurice Walsh.

Following their opening round loss, Clare travel to FBD Semple Stadium Thurles this Saturday (14:00) needing a win over Tipperary to get their challenge for a place in phase two of the provincial championship up and running.

Tipperary meanwhile are in a strong position after recording a 3-8 0-6 win over Limerick in Rathkeale on Saturday, the hosts will be the favourites this weekend.

Speaking to The Clare Echo, Walsh was frustrated that they became lacklustre in the second half. “We were quite happy last week at half time when we trailed by three points having played against the wind. We rectified a few things at half time and we came out and went ahead by six as we scored 2-3. We seemed to switch off at that stage and we got a little lacklustre. Our concentration levels dropped and Waterford took advantage”.

Éire Óg clubman Maurice noted, “Waterford ran Clare very close in minor football last year. Paul Power, their manager then is in charge of he under 20’s now and there is momentum in Waterford football”.

The manager acknowledged “we haven’t as much work done as other teams and we would have liked to have been in place a bit earlier”.

With Saturday’s game in Thurles very much in focus now, the Clare boss said “we met up on Monday night and we will train again this Thursday evening before deciding on the line up for Saturday’s game. Fortunately we don’t have any injury issues following last week’s game. We have looked at their (Tipperary) game and we have identified areas that we can work on. We were always targeting this game for a win. It’s real championship for us now”.