This article is from page 94 of the 2009-02-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 94 JPG
HE’S GOT his back to the unplas- tered wall outside the dressing room door and is, by now, changed out of his match day clothes. Addressing the assembled media and playing ab- sent-mindedly with a pair of glasses, Mike McNamara resembles a poet philosophising to a group of stu- dents. His zen-like reaction to the 70 minutes of hurling just passed simply re-enforces his status as laureate-in- chief of Clare hurling and he’s not getting overly-excited by an open- ing game that promised two league points but delivered defeat.
“You know what,” he says, “there’s a difference between the Crystal Cup and a game in the league in the Gaelic Grounds against our friendly neighbours. They’re two different Web eetSace
In the cold gloaming of an early February Sunday, perspective is as valuable as foresight and McNamara takes us back to last year, when Clare travelled to Limerick and returned home, tail firmly between legs.
“The last time, we came out of here with something like a nine or ten point drubbing, maybe going no place, maybe drifting aimlessly to
wherever people drift to,” he said, cryptically enough. “So we’ll take the positives out of today. It was a strange game but when you come to Limerick, as we know to our cost, you can’t just expect to win. It’s a very difficult place to win and that has been proven over the years.”
As for the Clare comeback in the final stages of the game, McNamara was inclined to give little away, say- ing simply that they sat down at half- time, drank a cup of tea and vowed to plough on.
“Maybe we’ll have a closer look at the first half as opposed to the second half. We were twelve points down with 25 minutes to go, but we showed the character we’re looking oe
“We might have made a few mis- takes. We might have introduced some of the newer boys who had been showing well. But we decided we’d go with the full array of strength and take it from there. We were looking for opportunities to introduce some of the young fellas as the match went on but it really didn’t transpire, with the exception of John Conlon. We’d have liked to have used Caimin Mo- rey but he has the flu with the last two weeks.”
With regard to the omission of the injured Niall Gilligan, he said on an- other day he might have been risked.
“If this was the championship, maybe we’d have forced Niall out to play. On a day like this, we took the caution of not playing him.”
And the goals’?
“They were unusual things. We got some of those breaks last year, so we’ll take the bad with the good. We’ll mix it all up. They come and they go. We would have to look at it ayer HOO
“If we were Manchester United we’d look at it with in-depth analy- sis. We’d see where the goals came from. Maybe have a look at the pay- packets of some of them. We haven’t that luxury.”
And Waterford next week?
“Me old buddy Davy and myself back again. Maybe they’re in a deep- er hole than us. It’s a difficult thing to come away from an All Ireland final like that when you know you didn’t play well and the opposition played to the maximum. That’s a difficult thing.