This article is from page 71 of the 2008-12-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 71 JPG
“We would have been very disap- pointed with our Munster final per- formance in 2008. We felt we should have and could have done a lot better than we did. We really have to make that good for the Clare supporters
who were there that day, the support- ers we felt we let down. We’re going to make that good and that’s our am- bition for the year. Our ambition now is to contest another Munster final and on this occasion to win it,’ Mc- Namara revealed.
“The bar is there. It’s held by Kil- kenny and held high. That’s what we have to attain and that’s what we have to achieve.
“We have levelled off what I used to determine the slide, now we can look with renewed optimism to what hope- fully will be a good league campaign and then an excellent championship campaign. It couldn’t be better. We train and train hard for big days and
big match days and we couldn’t ask for better than a Munster semi-final clash against either Cork or Tipper- ary, he added.
And, in sounding a bullishly confi- dent note for the year ahead, McNa- mara also revealed that youth will be given its fling throughout the season.
“There are some of last year’s panel that we didn’t bring back for a va- riety of reasons. There are a whole new range of people there. There is an open ended panel, with 10 or 12 players who haven’t appeared at sen- ior inter-county level before. We’re hoping that half a dozen of those will represent the county into the future.”
“We saw with the Under 21s last
year some very exciting new talents emerging. They were a very very good 21 team and a refusal to be beaten was written all over them, particularly against Cork in Cork.
‘“There’s excitement there and it’s up to us to target it and while it may not come to the fore immediately, certainly most of the new talent will be appearing and re-appearing through the league and through the championship with one eye to the fu- ture,’ added McNamara.