This article is from page 75 of the 2011-06-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 75 JPG
THIS was more than just a football game for Clare – it was a game when the county’s unheralded senior team finally threw off the shackles of indifference and mediocrity and struck a blow for the prestige of the game in the county.
That was the feeling of the few Clare supporters in Cusack Park on Saturday afternoon, something manager Micheál McDermott could sense in the feelgood factor and smiles on the stragglers left behind.
He didn’t want any of it though – and his players were of a like mind as he referenced the words of new captain Gary Brennan immediately after the game as they huddled together, for comfort maybe, down at the scoreboard end of the field.
“Gary showed the way,” said McDermott. “He said it clearly ‘no matter who applauds you off the field and no matter who slaps you on the back, today we lost and remember the pain the hurt of losing’.
“We emptied our tank on the field and the effort, the courage, the drive and desire from everyone of those players has to be held up as a great display for Clare, but it’s all about winning.
“People will say moral victories are good for a team like Clare, but I would say different. We have to learn from defeats like this and the hurt of today. We can’t say we were nearly there – we should have won that match today, we could have won it. That’s the bottom line. Our summer is over and Down move on.”
That’s the line any management team has to take, but at the same time there was much to take from the 70- plus minutes when Clare confounded their critics to produce their best performance of the year.
“We were brave today as a team,” said McDermott. “That’s the way we decided to go out and play. We said if we were going to win this game, we were going to win it playing football, by showing courage and bravery and going for the game, not being negative, not being here to contain.
“We set out our plan to go at them toe-to-toe. If we were to win, we had to take the game to them, man for man, with no sweeper system. Forget about blanket defences and things like that – we had to play football and take our game to them, rather than worry about their game or their key players. That’s what we did.
“The bodies are tired in there. They’re hurting from the effort they put in over the 70 minutes. Every one of the players emptied the tank out there today. It was all about hard work, intensity and trying to play good open football. We did that at times today.
“When you see Down holding onto the ball just to keep possession, you know they were in a battle. They weren’t going to showboat at the end. Listen it could have been a repeat of Louth against Meath – it would have been a hard call on the umpire with that last ball that went in, but that’s how close we were to winning the game and that’s how disappointed I feel for the players. We were on our home pitch and we wanted to go out and play football and win it playing football. We very nearly did that.”