This article is from page 99 of the 2007-03-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 99 JPG
THE dark hours and difficulties of putting a squad together given senior commitments and college football finally paid off on Saturday. Reward for Joe Garry and his team.
He stands outside the Clare dress- ing room door, inside the door just 40 minutes earlier he was planning the next phase of attack. Just one point up with the greedy share of posses- sion, he wasn’t panicking.
“We just said to the boys we were pleased with the way things were go- ing, because we were well on top in all sectors of the field,’ Garry says. “What wasn’t going too well for us was our scoring. We were on top, we should have been more ahead going in at the break. We knew that. We felt we probably deserved to be seven points up at half time but in fairness we felt if we kept at it, kept playing the way that we were playing that we’d win the game.”
Fourten chances and a return of four scores doesn’t make for positive reading but still, Garry says his play- ers were on top of things.
“I’m always in favour of lads tak- ing the ball on. To have a cut at it. It’s very easy to pass the ball off. You won’t get every shot you take but on other days you might get 17 or 18 scores. I think we only had what I’d class as two bad wides in the whole game. Everybody else was entitled to have a shot at it. I’d be very annoyed NiO OCoM BD OOCom UNO eleaarenlet lam
We’re delighted but in fairness to the lads they’ve been doing that all year long.”
Challenge games and training ses- sions gave them the foundation, but nobody was sure how they would come out when the traps lifted. Whether a layer of rust or doubt would linger. Garry didn’t have any doubts though.
‘These boys are unbelievably unit- ed. There’s a great unity in the team.
Everybody works hard for each other, from one to 25 on the panel. They deserved this win and they’ve two weeks to get ready for the next one. It’s a great win. A massive win. But there’s a good bounce in Clare football at the minute. From the mi- nors down to the under-14’s, there’s a feel good factor there. You can sense that in the crowd that came out to see Clare playing today. There’s good days ahead for Clare football and it’s a matter of keeping at it.”
Off he goes with back slaps still raining down upon him. Job done.