*Tony Kelly scoops the sliotar into his hand. Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
BEING CHAMPIONSHIP ready is “the end goal” for Clare’s senior hurlers, captain Tony Kelly has outlined.
Clare ended their winless run on Sunday when producing their best performance of the year to collect their first victory of 2025 when defeating Munster champions Limerick in their own backyard.
Supporters of the All-Ireland and League champions were very pleased to see Clare get off the mark and record the win but captain Tony Kelly said a greater emphasis was placed on them delivering a performance.
He said, “The performance was more important, the focus all week was to do the basics better than we had done the first three days, we didn’t do them well enough against Galway and we certainly didn’t do them well enough against Wexford last week, it is about the basics, the breaking ball and rucks which we hadn’t done well enough, we wanted a performance and we got it bar the first seven or eight minutes where Limerick were on top but our second quarter was really strong which put us in a good position at half time, it was a mature performance in the second half to always keep in front and (David) Reidy’s goal was a cushion for us”.
Kelly was unsure as to why it has taken Clare four games to improve the basics but he flagged they fielded a very inexperienced side in the opening round against Kilkenny and were just two points adrift at the final whistle. “We were missing a lot of lads the first day and the basics were good against Kilkenny so we were unlucky not to get a result but against Galway and Wexford our second quarter let us down on both days, you can’t be out a game for ten or fifteen minutes at this level so we got punished and rightly so. This is only a starting point for us for the year, it is two points on the board, we’ve an outside chance of staying in this Division if we can win our two games and we’ll need to build on this performance for Cork”.
An accidentally mistimed tackle from Tony forced Adam English to leave the field as a blood sub. Speaking on RTÉ, ex Galway hurler Joe Canning said of the incident, “Tony Kelly was very lucky”.
Offering his explanation, Tony said, “He sold me a dummy and I committed to it, on another day another referee could have sent you off for it, I committed trying to get the ball and in fairness I got the benefit of the doubt from the referee but on other days they can go against you”.
April 20th when they welcome Cork to Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg is front and centre in Clare’s minds, the five-time All Star detailed. “The end goal is April and building towards that, we know it is going to be a different sport come April, wins like this are very good this time of year but it is mainly about the performance level and can you get those one or two players like Jack O’Neill was very good, he has put himself in the frame to start next week, can you get the performance right and blood one or two new lads in the league”.
