This article is from page 109 of the 2009-06-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 109 JPG
THEY say you’ve got to buy a ticket if you want to have a chance. Well, Clare bought a ticket on Sunday but didn’t take their chance. No surpris- es then to find the subject of missed frees occupying the mind of Frank Doherty in the aftermath of Clare’s defeat to Limerick in the Munster semi-final.
Level at half time after a massively encouraging finish to the first half, Clare dropped off after the break and let Limerick creep three points clear. Clare compounded their poor start by missing kickable frees.
Needless to say, the Clare manager looked a frustrated man, standing outside the dressing rooms in Cusack Park.
‘Frees cost you games. It cost us today. We missed three or four frees and we lost by four points in the end,” stated Doherty afterwards.
He continued, “You’ve got to put frees from 45 yards in over the bar. That was a factor obviously. They got the start we didn’t want them to get
in the second half. They got two or three points. They did basically the same to us in the first half. We had to make sure that wasn’t going to hap- pen in the second half and it didn’t. It was more a case of us making slop- py balls ourselves rather than them working great scores, or anything like that. That was disappointing as well. But look it we tried as hard as we could. That’s really it”.
Doherty was full of praise for his team’s attitude, particularly that of Timmy Ryan, but added that the ex- ertions of the first half had maybe left his side a little short on energy after the break.
He said, “He tried his dannest. He was outstanding. I dunno, maybe ye guys know Timmy a lot longer than I do. People are saying, why would you go with Timmy Ryan. But other people haven’t seen him over the last five or six weeks. People criticize players and selections and so on and so forth in relation to who should be out there. But people don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. Gor- don Kelly and Graham Kelly drove
us on. Maybe they got a little tired. Dean was caught early on. He’s an- other lad who was absolutely flying DOM ORDO ODEN Toaee
Over the past 12 months Doherty’s public comments have often been fla- voured with references to the limited amount of players available to him and his selectors.
Injuries and the issue of players declining to link up with the county team were subjects again touched on by Doherty on Sunday.
“You have to remember today that were missing a couple of serious players in my opinion like John Hay- es and David Connolle. They’re lads who will drive you on from there. And if the whole county was availa- ble to the management team it might have been a different ball game to- day altogether. What you have, you work with and you do your best with. And I believe we’ve got as much as we possibly can out of them.”