This article is from page 42 of the 2005-09-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 42 JPG
A SENSE of déja vu wrapped itself around the Clare dressing room in Croke Park around 2.20 on Sunday af- ternoon. All-Ireland final afternoon and for Clare the type of afternoon they’re well used to by now.
The final was there to be won, but they didn’t win it and the sense of dis- appointment was palpable. They lived to fight another day, but this was the day they wanted to win their All-Ireland.
Some of the players were disconsolate — others accentuated the positive and looked ahead to the next day with confi- dence. As selector, you have to be posi- tive at all times and look to the future.
“We’re deeply disappointed not to have won because we felt that we were the better team,” said selector Mick Ma- her. “But when you look at it logically, over the hour we have to be happy with the draw and are happy to be getting a second chance.
“We got a very bad start and that had an unsettling effect on the team — Dub- lin were very physical and that certain- ly knocked us off our stride. It was 20 minutes before got into the game at all,” AYeCeCeM\YENeoe
However, once Clare got going they were the dominant team and clawed their way back into contention and inched ahead for the first time with four minutes to go when Claire McMahon pointed a free.
Clare looked to be on the cusp of a fourth All-Ireland junior success in Croke Park as the game entered injury time, but a Dublin point deep in lost time brought the sides together again.
It was rough justice on the Banner girls — there were only supposed to be three minutes of injury time but Niamh Taylor’s equalising score came in the fourth minute.
However, there were no complaints from Clare — instead they just looked
forward to the next day out. The replay has been fixed for October 8, with Port- laoise likely to be the venue.
Mick Maher is hoping that the three- week break will give time for injury concerns to ease, while he will also be looking for the improvement needed if Clare are to win their fourth All-Ireland junior crown.
“We have a lot of young girls on the team and you have to realise where we re coming from. Clare camogie 1s coming from a base where it was non- existent a few years ago. We’re not the finished article yet but we’re getting there,” he said.
‘We learned another lesson today and I think we will be the better for that in the replay. It’s about the team producing the goods for the hour. We will have to play better than we have before and do it for the whole game to win, but I believe that we have it in us,’ added Maher.