*Connor Meaney, Dermot Coughlan and Brian McNamara swarm Darragh Galvin. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
PHYSICALLY Clare’s footballers will be able to match any county according to manager Paul Madden.
Powerful hits in successive weeks from Brendy Rouine and Ikem Ugwueru lifted the Clare supporters on their way to victories over Fermanagh and Laois to reignite the side’s National Football League campaign.
Such moments also resulted in all-important turnovers. Manager Madden believed they demonstrated how Clare are capable of matching the strongest sides. “Physically I think we’re a match for most people, they are huge moments in games and the crowd gets behind you when it happens, it gives the lads a lift. We don’t practice it at training, it happens”.
Without question, Clare made hard work of Sunday’s win, their second in Division 3 under Madden but claimed the coveted two points. “The last two have been wins and we’ve needed them. We made hard work of it, we really did, I thought we played excellent stuff, we really did, we improved our kickouts and were winning our breaks, doing everything we wanted to do against the breeze”.
Brian Byrne’s dismissal on a straight red card on twenty one minutes didn’t spur Clare to life. Granted, they kicked the next two points via Mark McInerney, they fell behind until the forty fourth minute.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Madden voiced his frustration with how they failed to deal with having an extra man. “The minute their man got sent off it was like we switched off. To be honest I wouldn’t be happy with how we finished, I’d be very happy with the last three minutes but the second half we switched off, the black card made it even, I thought it would help us actually being man on man but credit to Laois because they came out and seemed to be able to find an extra guy in the forward division. We were very fortunate for a finish because they had some misses and Stephen had a great save from the penalty, it wasn’t great to be honest but it was a win”.
He added, “I don’t know if you can replicate fully that scenario, you can work around and we have done a bit around it, I don’t know if you can replicate it when it is a bit hectic in the middle of the pitch. In the modern game effectively what you need is eleven attackers against ten defenders, their goalkeeper Killian (Roche) is a big man and he came out a lot, he made it eleven versus eleven”.
Hitting a tally of 0-24 was pleasing, the Ennis man noted. “Galway were up eleven points on Saturday and lost the game, that is the nature of the modern game now, it is end to end, twenty five points is the magic number and we had twenty four today, I wouldn’t be happy with conceding the goals, they were poor”.
His main message to the panel following the game was to praise their character. “I was saying to the lads if I had to credit them on one thing it is the character, in the past if we went behind like that we’d have lost. I thought our substitutions made a huge impact, even the last steal from Jamie, the man came out with the ball but Jamie is a brilliant tackler, he is as hard as nails, it was a great start and finish but there was a lot in between that we won’t be happy with. We’re alive and heading to Limerick on Saturday evening for a big local derby”.
It was a strong final push where Clare kicked six points in the final eight minutes that served as the winning of the game, inspired by Stephen Ryan’s penalty save. “It is down to character but it is down to conditioning too, I feel like we’re in a decent place conditioning wise although there is a few lads creaking there near the end, I think it was more of a fact that they couldn’t believe they were in that position”.
Leading the way in this spell was the experienced Eoin Cleary who kicked 0-10 in Sunday’s game. “He was outstanding, he has super qualities, you just need to get him in the right place on the right ball. We had to take Mark McInerney off, he took a knock early, he tried to run it off but he couldn’t, Cormac Murray then kicked three, not a bad replacement”.
Sunday also marked the first occasion where the hooter was used in Cusack Park. “When it went off at the end I didn’t know what was going on, I thought it was a fire alarm, I forgot we had the hooter in Cusack Park. It does give certainty, as long as the clocks are working and they stop them when they should be stopping them, it can work for you and against you,” he said.
