This article is from page 85 of the 2007-03-27 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 85 JPG
ANOTHER defeat for Clare — three on the bounce after the morale boosting start to the Paidi O Sé reign with victories over Carlow and Lei- trim. Another cloud in a relegation dogfight, but the upbeat mood of the Clare contingent afterwards showed that it had something of a silver lin- ing.
Paidi was positive as he gathered his team around — barking encourag- ing words about commitment, deter- mination, pride in the jersey. Things taken for granted in a county with 34 All-Irelands; questioned after the 13- point drubbing at home at the hands of Monaghan.
Afterwards Vincent O’Connor made similar soundings as he took the players for a warm down. There
was no warm down after the Mona- ghan game — maybe it was because the team didn’t break enough sweat to warrant one.
It was different in O’Connor Park on Sunday. Another precious two points went the other way but Paidi still preached positivity for the fu- ture when fielding questions after the game.
‘“We’re very upbeat after today,’ he said. “We played very well and the lads gave a great account of them- selves. We were unfortunate to lose Frank O’Dea during the course of the day and before the game we hadn’t David Russell available to us. Apart from that we played very well.
“We should have capitalised a bit more with the wind. We’ve only our- selves to blame for that. It’s the sign of good character in a team that can
bounce back against Offaly, up here in Offaly, after the drubbing against Monaghan.
“There was a good bit more fight and while we’re disappointed in the manner in which we lost the game in the end but we’re quite happy with the way we played, just a little bit dis- appointed that we didn’t get a share of the spoils.”
As for the future, Paidi was already looking forward to the game against London this coming Sunday. Lowly London, the cannon fodder of Na- tional League football. Still a big game for Clare insisted Paidi, be- cause he says “every game that Clare play in is a big game. We’re looking forward to it.”
It’s the only thing Clare can do in their desperate attempt to avoid the ignominy of Division 4 football for 2008. That would be worse than the bad old days of Division 3 South.