This article is from page 69 of the 2011-03-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 69 JPG
IT was hard to find a pulse in Cusack Park on Saturday afternoon such was futility of this exercise from London’s point of view, but Clare couldn’t let lack of enthusiasm for this fixture come between them and the bread and butter of two league points.
So it was that Clare moved through the gears, very slowly and sluggishly during the first 35 minutes before really pressing on the accelerator in the second half that made this largely forgettable encounter a tale of two halves for Micheál McDermott’s charges.
“Our first half performance was very poor and we had a good chat with the lads at half-time about what had gone wrong,” admitted McDermott afterwards.
“London dropped an extra man back in defence and we just weren’t clever enough to cope with that. When we pumped long ball in they were mopping it up.
“In the second half if they stayed with that formation we were going to run at them from deep, but they went 15 on 15,” he added.
But that’s where it all went wrong for London – the damage limitation they’d employed in the first half as corner-forward Austin Concannon dropped back between the full-back and half-back lines had at least made them competitive, but 15 on 15 fast turned things into something of an embarrassment as a six-point halftime deficit mushroomed to 21 points by the end.
“Our second half performance was a lot better,” said McDermott, “and I was very pleased with the goals that we worked because they came from moves that we had been working on in training.
“Gary Brennan coming out to midfield in the second half really helped us. He got a good goal in the first half from full-forward but for the first 15 minutes of the second half with him at midfield we dominated the area and we drove on and got some great scores from it.
“It was important to get a win under our belts before moving on the last four games of the campaign. Starting with Roscommon next weekend we know what we have to do.
“Every game is a big game from now on. Every game is a must win game if we want promotion to Division Three for next year.