This article is from page 93 of the 2008-02-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 93 JPG
FRANK Doherty walks out of the Clare dressing room looking like a man who signed up for a 10 kilome- tre jog but has just been told he’s got two marathons to run.
The job is big, Frank. Bigger, may- be, than anybody ever expected.
For now, he’s still hopeful of entic- ing one or two more players onto the panel and though they’re needed, that invitation after three straight league defeats looks increasingly less se- ductive with every passing week.
That the panel has to be looked at with a sharper, more critical eye is now obvious and Doherty says it’s time to re-assess the value of some of it’s members.
“There are guys who’ll have to be released after today,” he says. “From my own point of view, I’m totally down after that performance and so are the two selectors involved. And so are the players as well.
‘“There’s a lot of cracks out there to be quite honest. There’s no point
painting a rosy picture. People have already spoken about where we are right now and at the moment, we’re down at the bottom. We’re going to have to try and lift the lads and get them up for Waterford on March 2.”
He’s asked about some of the mis- takes Clare were responsible for and says he’s struggling to grasp the quantity of fumbles and dropped or nR
‘The amount of turnovers were un- believeable. I couldn’t count them all myself at times. We haven’t been un- der lights every night of the week to do certain things, but we have trained hard. It’s not an excuse because these are basic errors. We’re talking about club lads at underage, taking balls into tackles with a solo. Hopping a ball in front of a player when you’re about to go into a tackle. It’s basic, basic stuff.”
The cracks that Doherty saw on Saturday are one thing but the length of the road ahead of Clare becomes clear when he speaks of the need to revert to grassroots coaching.
A manager takes a job and expects the base skills to be available, he shouldn’t have to worry about an in- ferior legacy.
“I’ve always said that these guys need to be taught at an early age but we re talking 10 and 12 years of age to be addressing this. If the fututre is going to be bright for Clare — which I hope it will be — then these are things that need to be addressed. The skills have to be there if the next few crops will improve. But from a technical point of view, to be honest, some of the errors out there were schoolboy errors.
“Let’s look at the bigger picture. I’m not here to criticise players. I wouldn’t do that. The guys have abil- ity and they’ve played to the best of their ability. When it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. That’s sport and it’ll knock you on your back every now and then.”