This article is from page 114 of the 2010-02-09 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 114 JPG
last week — he be- lieved it then, but might just be im- bued with a little bit more belief on the back of his team’s second-half transformation that yielded two pre- cious points.
Certainly, he talked that way after- wards. “We should be able to beat Kilkenny and we’re two and o going into the Leitrim match and we have Leitrim at home. It’s set up nicely for us, if we continue to work hard and try improve on what we did, we should be well able to compete with any team in the division.”
He wouldn’t have said anything like this at half-time — he didn’t need to remind us of that fact, but was eager to single out Clare’s first-half failings. “It looked very bleak for us. I was very disappointed with the way we played in the first-half. The game plan wasn’t working at all.
“We did 26 training sessions, we had eight matches, three of them A v B. Everything we do is game specific — the players were put on a programme and they’re expected to adhere to the programme. In the first-half we didn’t execute what we
were supposed to do.”
But, credit where credit 1s due was McHale’s over-riding thought for this day, as he reflected on the second- half renaissance. “In the second-half we showed a little bit of spirit and a little bit of skill and got back in the game.
“We deserved to win the game in the end, even though we were bad in
the first-half, I thought we had two or three goal chances and had one of them went in it would have settled us down a bit.
“They had a lot more flair and con- fidence than we had at times. That comes from winning games — this Clare team has had a difficult four or five years and a lot of the play- ers have been around and have had
losing seasons. It’s very hard to pick yourself up, but the fact that we won today will give them a lift.
“We are approaching this league like the championship doesn’t exist. This 1s our championship right now. The county board, when they put the management team in place, wanted us to do well in the league and get out of the division. I think that’s the
only way to make progress.
“It would have been a huge disap- pointment for the players and man- agement if we didn’t win today, or at least get a draw. Now we can build from here.”
Build towards those stars, that is.