*Photograph: Ruth Griffin.
CLARE manager Brian Lohan has said he is “very disappointed” with their performance and result following a fifteen point loss to Cork on Sunday.
Relegation from Division 1A of the Allianz National Hurling League seems inevitable for the reigning All-Ireland and league champions after losing four of their five games so far this year.
Speaking following Clare’s drubbing at the hands of Cork, Lohan stated, “Very disappointed in the performance, very disappointed in the result and the nature of the result as well. I have to give credit to Cork but that’s maybe a bit too easy to say. When you concede as many goals as that, it’s just very tough on all concerned.
“Look, conceding those goals was obviously massive and maybe not fronting up to the attitude that Cork came with as well, that’s disappointing too,” he added.
Lohan believed that within a week there has been a change in the manner in which games have been refereed. “That said, I think that game was refereed differently to anything we’ve seen so far. The word I’m getting is that there was a big meeting with the referees during the week and they laid down the law but nobody told us and nobody told the players.
“To get all this information second-hand or third-hand and have two players sent off as a result of it, it’s just not good enough. I mean if they’re going to change the way the game is refereed, the least you could do is tell us,” Lohan said.
Clare finished with thirteen men following the dismissals of Peter Duggan and David Fitzgerald, Lohan was frustrated witht the red card for Duggan in what was his first appearance of the year.
“So four red cards in Kilkenny, three here and one last night. Okay, last night there was no debate, it should have been a red. But I don’t know, I thought Peter’s was a harmless tackle. I thought the goalkeeper kind of ducked his head to get around the tackle and it was harmless. As for Fitzy’s one, I haven’t spoken to David now, so I don’t know exactly what happened but it looks like the game was refereed completely differently to how the games have been refereed so far this year. A little bit of notice is I think is what we deserve,” he said.
Although happy with the win, Cork manager Pat Ryan stressed their visit to Ennis on April 20th was the defining fixture. “It was a good day. We performed well. I thought the lads were sharp and they took the goals well and they were very clinical. I think that’s our game. I mean we’ve have very dangerous inside-forwards so we’re trying to get the ball in a bit better. We probably didn’t take our chances over the last couple of league matches that we played in. We took all our chances today, we’ve worked very hard on that and we took those opportunities against what is a very mean Clare defence normally.
“I’m a bit disappointed with the last 15 or 20 minutes as I thought we got a bit ragged and didn’t keep our shape. That’s something that won’t be good enough when we come back up here in six or seven weeks’ time. So that’s something that we’ll go after over the next two weeks of training,” Ryan added.
Cork are still in contention for league honours, they welcome Galway to SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on March 22nd. “We’ll have more fellas back now again the next day but we have to win that game too. That’s what we’re looking at, win every match we can and put in our best performance, that’s what the Cork fans deserve, that’s what they want, and you can’t beat winning matches”.
Ryan maintained Sunday’s clash was not a dirty game. “When you play Clare, or any team these days, it’s going to be man on man and you have to front up physically and be ready to go. That’s what we love, we love the challenges, we love the high ball coming down on top of two fellas and them going hammer and tongs at it. As long as it’s not malicious and as long as it’s not dirty and I don’t think there was a dirty stroke out there today. There might have been coming-togethers but I don’t think we were ever accused of being a dirty team anyway and I don’t think Clare are, either.
“We’ll be back up her in six weeks time, that’s the one we really need to win,” he concluded.
