*Paul Madden. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill.
CLARE’s senior footballers “were as good” as Kerry in Saturday’s Munster semi-final according to manager Paul Madden who was left “bitterly disappointed” by “blatant screening” which led to decisive scores.
Coverage of the Munster SFC on The Clare Echo is with thanks to Martin Daly Autos on the Quin Rd Business Park, Ennis
Four points separated Clare and Kerry at half-time but the concession of two soft second half goals allowed the visitors go nine points clear in Ennis before late points from Mark McInerney and Aaron Griffin reduced the final gap to seven.
Losing to Kerry coupled with the four Allianz National Football League defeats which kept Clare in Division 3 has the Banner heading for the Tailteann Cup for the very first time after three successive All-Ireland SFC campaigns.
Inside Clare’s dressing room the mood at half-time was upbeat but close to an hour later, there was a sense of regret emanating. “We’re disappointed because at half time we felt the game was there for the taking, to be honest we did. Obviously we know their pedigree and they will have purple patches and you want to curtail the damage during their purple patch but over the whole course of the game bar maybe six or seven minutes at one stage in the second half, I thought we were as good as they were to be honest, I really did so that is disappointing in the context of it but if you can park that for a second which is hard because I don’t like losing, you would have to take a lot of positives out of the game,” Madden outlined.
Adding some frustration was the screening which saw Clare players obstructed and enabled Kerry to get off scores. “We were bitterly disappointed with some of the decisions and the officials have a tough job but definitely we felt there was blatant screening going on, I wouldn’t even call it screening, we were expecting some of that but it was third man fouls, even in the old game they were penalised,” the Ennis man said.
From instances of screening or obstructing Ikem Ugwueru, Kerry scored 1-1 alone but Madden said such offences led to a combined 1-6 for the Munster champions. “We think they got 1-6 in total from that sort of stuff when you take two pointers into consideration. We still gave the ball away too many times, not many, we had one wide, we managed our possession quite well, we were under pressure at times, we went nine points down and brought it back but really and truly I didn’t think there was a big gulf in scoring difference between the teams but the scoreboard is what counts”.
Reflecting on their own performance, Paul acknowledged Clare errors added to their downfall. “We made our own mistakes too, a couple of sloppy handpasses but we were very comfortably with the ball really for most periods of the game when we were offensively going forward and trying to work a score we were very comfortable on the ball and we manufactured scores. It was a pity that Eoin (Cleary) left as early as he did because he is a very good two point option especially with a little bit of a breeze in the second half but the subs who came on were brought on for lads who were absolutely fatigued or injured and I thought they did a good job. Overall we have a lot of positives going forward, we’ll be going all out to prepare for our next game”.
How Clare conceded both goals both in their timing and manner was deflating. Paudie Clifford’s green flag on forty two minutes was responded to with three of the next four scores but David Clifford’s major on sixty minutes put the pin in the Banner balloon. “We got a good few scores after their first goal, I think we did okay after the first goal but the second one was just so frustrating, I felt we were going to get a free out the other direction but it is what it is and we can’t do anything about them now, we wish Kerry the best of luck going forward, we know we are capable of competing”.
Fitness wise, Madden felt Clare were on par with the reigning All-Ireland champions. “To be fair we had a good plan coming into the game, you hear people saying we executed a plan but I think we did, the message was simple, we knew who was marking who and who was doing what. One of the big things for me at the start of the year was when you are playing top quality teams and there was some in Division 3 as well we have to remember but when you are playing top quality teams at inter-county level, you need to be in the right conditioned state to play them and I thought if anything all year even in the games we’ve lost and played poorly I thought we have been physically conditioning wise been a match for any team we’ve played and we were again today”.
Three-time footballer of the year David Clifford previously listed Gordon Kelly of St Joseph’s Miltown as one of his toughest opponents. His latest Clare duel saw him pitted with Ikem Ugwueru with the Ennis man more than holding his own. “Ikem was very good today, he was hard done by for a couple of those screens and I thought he did an excellent job. Someone else in the media asked about Ikem, the thing about Ikem is he is an extreme athlete but he is rapid fast, he is very strong and he has great feet so it was an ideal match, he won three aerial tackles too, I thought he did really well as all the lads did, nobody was replaced because they played poorly, it was because they gave everything they had and we said if they did no matter what the result we would be proud of them”.
Focus now switches to the Tailteann Cup for Clare who welcome Offaly to Zimmer Biomet Páirc Chíosóg. “I said at the start of the year, no matter what competition we’re in we will give it everything, we would love to be in a Munster final and we feel we really had a chance to be in but we’re not and we will go all out to prepare for it, it won’t be easy because there’s good teams in it and teams that have beaten us already this year, we will take it game by game, we’re guaranteed a minimum of two games, it is about getting a little breather tonight and getting back on the training ground next week”.
Eoin Cleary is a huge doubt for that encounter having picked up a hamstring injury. “It is a hamstring, the severity of it is unknown but it was instant, two weeks would be very optimistic”.
