This article is from page 78 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 78 JPG
THEY SAY defeat is only bitter if you swallow it and by the defiant tones of Fergal Lynch after Sunday’s defeat to Tipperary, the Clooney/ Quin man was not about to accept any moral victories regarding their impressive performance in the face of defeat.
“We are talking about good performances in Clare for the last 25 years since the 1977/78 teams. To be honest, it’s not good enough and we haven’t turned the corner. We need to turn the corner in the next couple of years because lads are going to go. Lads are going to leave the country the ways things are happening in the economy. We need to come up with a victory and we need to take one of the big teams. We are well capable of doing it but sometimes we were a bit naïve today in all areas of the pitch.
“We leaked goals and we should have got goals ourselves. We should have came out fighting fairly strongly in the second half and they seemed to tighten at the back and open the space at the front and they brought the game to us whereas we should have brought it to them.
“It’s a lack of a bit of cuteness and if we can develop that, we can turn the corner and there is no reason why we can’t beat any of the big teams.
Neither was Lynch willing to accept that playing in Division 2 was the main reason that Clare failed to maintain their impressive start throughout the 70 minutes.
“It probably did play some part in the end result alright but at the end of the day, we’re all intelligent people and we know exactly how to prepare for a championship match. All the lads inside know exactly what’s needed to win a championship match. The Under 21’s won an All-Ireland so they know what it takes. It’s back to the drawing board for us and we have this match under our belts and we are looking forward to the next game already. We are going to come out fighting out of this.”
That bout is against neighbours Galway whom Lynch has never faced in championship fare but is eager to redress that in a fortnight’s time in Pearse Stadium.
“We are looking forward to the qualifiers. There is no reason why we can’t perform in the qualifiers and there is no reason why we can’t take the likes of Galway.
“It’s just up to ourselves now how we react to this beating. How we react in training next week. How lads are going injurywise so the most important thing now is to get morale up and Ger [O’Loughlin] should be good at that. He’s good at getting lads going so he’d be very focused on trying to get us back on track because we are going to take a scalp this year and it’s going to be a big one and God help, who it’s going to be.”
It has to be Galway or Clare will have to settle for moral victories for at least another 12 months.