This article is from page 85 of the 2009-07-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 85 JPG
WHEN the dust had settled and the rain had dried up, Mike McNamara felt he knew where Clare fell down in their quest to get past the challenge of Galway.
Openly, McNamara cited a higher work-rate from the eventual winners as the main difference between the two sides.
“We thought the big difference was that their work-rate was probably higher than ours. But then as you have seen with this Galway team, they have moved towards a strong work ethic. It’s probably paying divi- dends and it remains to be seen will it pay the final dividend.”
According to McNamara, Clare had put in enough foundation over the past few weeks to merit a strong- er showing on Saturday.
“We had looked good for the last couple of weeks. Training was really, really superb and they were playing really, really well. Because of that I would have thought that a big per- formance was on the cards today. But we seemed to struggle in key areas and we seemed to get the match plan wrong. We tried to adjust as we did against Tipperary and the adjustment
went well against Tipp but today it didn’t go quite as well.
“When I looked at the scoreboard with five minutes to go, I think it said 1-15 for Galway and 1f somebody had told me that this morning I would have thought we would have been on the right side of a win.”
Given the conditions, McNamara felt the wind changed directions dur- ing the game which didn’t exactly help Clare.
“The breeze went the other way for the second half for some strange reason. I don’t know, the breeze actu- ally changed at half-time which can happen in this type of weather. We actually had a very happy dressing room at half-time. Maybe we were not playing as well as we would like but yet we were well in the game. They [Galway] were poorish in the first half as well – they had a lot of bad wides and so had we. So I don’t know really.”
Speaking in broader terms, McNa- mara pointed out that Clare must now look at the structures in place with a view to ensuring the county remains competitive in the future.
“We will have to look at the whole structures and why our level of con- sistency 1S so poor. We have loads
of fellas who drop their heads when they shouldn’t. We need players who should be able to contest with the best and aren’t contesting with the best so we will have to look at the whole area really.”
He was also critical of the fact that Clare must now face into a relegation battle this weekend.
“T don’t know what they [GAA hi- erarchy| are doing really. When you are out of the championship, you are out of the championship so what the hell are they doing? I know all those lads want to do 1s go away from their hurleys for a week or two. They are more disappointed than anybody else and most of them are disappointed in the way they played. And then someone comes in and makes the big announcement that we are up again 1 Cop.4 Mets), eae
Hopefully, for Clare, the Wexford game will produce the one competi- tive win that the county has been seeking for the entire season.