*Clare’s Chloe Towey with Westmeath’s Niamh Spellman. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography
Composure was lacking from Clare’s intermediate ladies football side, manager Evan Talty maintained following their exit at the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Three points was the margin on Sunday afternoon when Westmeath dumped Clare out at the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Clare manager Evan Talty reflected, “It’s just really disappointing because I thought that game was there for us. I definitely felt that we were the better team and I suppose it was a marked improvement on a lot of our performances this year. For a finish, we had plenty of chances and kicked four or five wides and unfortunately, we just didn’t have the composure to take our chances.
“At the other end, conceding goals has been an issue all year. We’re our own worst enemy as when we concede one, we’ve to concede two more with it. So being eight down, we did kick on after that and got it back to three and at half-time, I felt that we were well in the game. We eventually got it down to one and I felt that if we could have got level at all, we would have kicked for home but we just couldn’t get that equaliser,” the Kilmurry Ibrickane clubman added.
Talty continued, “The one thing I was pleased with today was that we got a performance out of them. I think anyone watching the game would have seen that we were probably the better team over the course of 60 minutes. So we were poor against Leitrim and less so against Fermangh but I think today they actually showed how they can play. It’s no shame to lose as that’s a good Westmeath team that will go a long way in the intermediate championship. So ultimately the goals killed us but we were definitely a lot happier today with our performance”.
