*John Conlon holds off Corey Byrne Dunbar. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLARE’s senior hurlers brought one hell of a kick as they recorded their largest ever National Hurling League win over Wexford.
Brian Lohan acknowledged that they fielded one of the strongest teams available to them and certainly had the most heavy hitters on the field that were at their disposal as they defeated Wexford in emphatic fashion on a score of 6-25 1-18.
Speaking to the media following Clare’s second win of this year’s League, Lohan outlined, “We came down last night and focused fairly well for the game. [We] didn’t know the number of personnel that Wexford were missing, but at the same time, we had to look after ourselves. We’re happy enough with the performance. We turned over a couple of balls early on, conceded what we would describe as soft scores. On occasion our touch let us down a bit, but that’s going to happen. Overall the players responded well. [We were] under a little bit of pressure coming into it, not because we lost the last day, but because our performance was so poor”.
He added, “We probably went as strong (as we could), we had a good few fellas back from the previous game and I suppose we were very disappointed with that performance so there was a little kick in us and then the conditions were really good so it made for really good scoring, we performed well today”.
“The Limerick game was so bad on a lot of fronts that there was no point in dwelling too much on it. Sometimes you just have to endure those tough knocks. When you’re playing quality opposition, you have to be right every day and if you’re a little bit off in your approach and the personnel on the field, you can ship a hiding.”
Wexford’s absentees which included Lee Chin, Rory O’Connor, Liam Ryan and Mark Fanning must also be taken into account when reviewing the game, Lohan felt. “The lads played well there’s no doubt about that, it’s a hard place to come down here. You have to be aware of the fact that they were missing a number of their top players so we need to take that into account when you’re looking at the performance and how good or bad a performance it is”.
Welcoming back John Conlon, Tony Kelly, Ryan Taylor and Paul Flanagan to the fold for their first league starts of 2023 was a big plus, the Shannon man said.
Also pleasing for the former full-back was the showing of Feakle’s Adam Hogan at corner back. “He’s been impressive in every level he has played, going back to when he was a young fella and the Harty Cup last year all the way through that he was impressive in that campaign. In fairness, he has been very impressive in training with us and very impressive in the group”.
