This article is from page 92 of the 2009-06-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 92 JPG
SAME room. Same result. Same fat purple bruise. 11 months ago Brian O’Connell walked into the narrow kitchen under the Mackey Stand in the Gaelic Grounds to face the media after Clare’s defeat to Tipperary in the Munster final. His forehead was marked by a big purple bruise.
On Sunday, O’Connell returned to that same room to offer his thoughts on another Clare defeat at the hands of Tipperary. Again he wore the scars of battle. Another bulging pur- ple bruise, caused, as O’Connell ex- plained, by a dropping sliotar, he lost in the sunshine.
O’Connell had no complaints last July. But on Sunday, after a battling second half display, the Clare captain believed his side deserved at least a draw for their efforts.
“It was kind of a game of two halves. We came from six points
down at the start of the second half. We could have come away with a draw. A draw would have been justi- fied’, said O’Connell.
The Wolfe Tones club man admit- ted that Clare’s poor start made tat- ters of their pre-match game plan but added that the players never gave up hope.
“The plan was not to give them a start but obviously that didn’t work out too well. They got a good lead and after that we were just trying to peg it back, peg it back. In the second half we gave them a couple of more points again’, he said,
O’Connell added, “But credit to ourselves, we kept on digging in and its something we talked about, that if we got a goal conceded against us or a couple of scores then we’d keep on digging in. We really pushed them to the end. I suppose the match that they had kind of stood to them. They had a bit more in them. But we’ll build
on today”.
Agreeing that Clare’s re-modelled half back line stemmed the influence of the Tipperary attack in a superior second half display, O’Connell said that Sunday’s game was about show- ing pride in the jersey
“In our own county, we’ve been knocked. Our heart has been ques- tioned. That’s all we wanted out of today. To prove that we have heart and we love playing for Clare. It’s a joy for us to wear our jersey. When that was questioned, we had to come out with answers today. We tried our best to come out and represent the jersey as best we could”, he said.