This article is from page 76 of the 2011-06-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 76 JPG
TOMMY Dunne knows all about Clare ambushes on the Ennis Road – he made his senior championship debut in the Munster quarter-final clash in 1994 when the clap of thunder that greeted Tommy Guilfoyle’s match-winning goals could be heard as far away as Slievenamon.
That’s why experience had taught the Toomevara man to expect a big Clare performance – he knew it wouldn’t be any other way and knew it would be a battle.
That was his gospel after this ballgame was over, thankful that the AllIreland champions were up for battled, because, if they weren’t….
“We prepared very well for the game. We were very conscious that people were completely writing Clare off and we were very much on our guard for that,” the 2001 All-Ireland winning captain admitted.
“I think had we underestimated Clare to any degree, we would have came second today, because I thought Clare really meant business out there today.”
This fact was hammered home with Clare’s blitzkrieg start that saw them race into a 1-3 to no score lead inside eight minutes.
“We were hoping to make a strong start. We knew Clare would be trying to do the same and it was they who got the better start.
“It took us a long time to get to grips with them. In fairness to Clare I thought they gave a very good account of themselves and they were unlucky not to get a couple of more goals.
“From our point of view we got a couple of goals, probably against the run of play. We were under severe pressure and those goals got us into the game and kept us in the game in the first half.
“Clare were well on top, but those goals made a huge difference. The first two goals cut the deficit and the third one put us ahead, even though we didn’t deserve it on the balance of play.
“They had a lot of quality and you could see that in their play. We were happy with our preparation, but obviously we weren’t happy with the way we performed on the back of that preparation, but that’s sport. It’s not a straight-line graph. I think our lads were well-tuned for the game the fact that we were eventually stood to them.
“It comes from experience. We’ve been around the block a few times and in fairness the lads dug out some great scores when we really needed them.
“In the second half we probably upped our game all over the field, even though we hit a few bad wides towards the end, but we got the scores to open up a six or seven point gap and that was the big difference,” added Dunne.