*Alan Sweeney. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
DESPITE placing a focus on not allowing Kerry gain dominance early on in the Munster final, Clare did exactly that and it added to the disappointment of a third provincial final loss for wing-back Alan Sweeney.
Within the first ten minutes, Kerry hit Clare for 2-4 while only adding one score of their own, a fisted effort from Daniel Walsh during this spell. Effectively it was game over at this juncture.
Having put an emphasis on matching Kerry’s start, Clare’s ability not to achieve what they set out to made the defeat more painful. Defender Alan Sweeney outlined, “We’re disappointed as a group, the one thing we talked about coming down here was that we couldn’t give Kerry a fast start, never mind giving them a fast start in their home patch in Killarney so that was obviously disappointing because it was something we talked about. Naturally there are some things you can’t control like black cards, it is the nature of the beast and they got a great start”.
On the way to Killarney and in advance of the Munster final, the mood in the Clare camp is confident which is why they were more baffled with how poorly they started. “Training leading into the game was excellent I thought, lads were in a good position, everything was very positive but I guess it was one of those things, we were coming into the lion’s den and everything had to go right if you are to have a chance of winning”.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Alan noted that Kerry’s tactic of killing teams off early by raiding for goals is one they have been architects at for some while. “It is a tactic that they work on, they have done it a few times to us that they come with the heat early and you have to be able to weather that, we felt like we weathered it for large parts in Ennis last year and we settled into the game from there but today they seemed to get the bounces they went for it and they ended up in the back of the net, some days they go in. We got a penalty and unfortunately it didn’t go in the back of the net, we were always going to need that to win”.
Clare need to be ready for a quicker pace of games as they experienced in the Munster final for their three outings in the All-Ireland series, the Doolin man flagged. “A break is caught quicker in a game like this which is one of the things we have to get used to, the onus is on us heading into the All-Ireland championship to get back training Wednesday and put ourselves in the best foot forward starting in Ennis. We’ll sit down and lads will quickly their turn focus to that because we know we’re better than that as a group and everyone here is very disappointed”.
Focus is already shifting to a home tie with Down to kick off their All-Ireland run, Sweeney said. “We can settle down at the end of the year and whatever happens happens and we’ll see where things went wrong but we have to draw a line in the sand and get back to training, all the focus will turn to Down straight away”.
