This article is from page 107 of the 2008-07-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 107 JPG
IN THE immediate moments after the final whistle, a couple of things spring to the mind of Gerald Mc- Carthy. The battling quality of Clare and what he described as the “lucky” substitutions Cork executed.
But if Clare battled, then Cork went to war for the second week in a row and came out unscathed or unscratched and as for those substi- tutions, there was nothing fortunate about them. Two goals from the bench merely highlights the strength
of the Cork panel.
“I think we were lucky in that some of the substitutions we made worked out for us, they gave us a lift, so we’re happy to win. But in fairness, it was a real fight to the end.
‘Sometimes they [the substitutions] come off. We had a few tired bod- ies out there and two or three other lads could have come off as well. Fellas were just tired and it’s a hard ask to play two championship games in a week. Some lads played Under 21 during the week on top of that, so that’s three games in a week.
“It was said last week that it was too much for fellas and it is. The GAA is asking too much of these lads. They might think that because they are young, these lads can keep going but these big games take a lot out of you. It shouldn’t be allowed, playing three championship games in a week. The GAA needs to take a look at that.”
He looks back at Clare’s start and says they were hungry for posses- sion, that they were frenzied in their desire to clean up whatever ball was breaking and says that Clare’s open- ing goal was like a kick in the gut.
“Tt [Barry Nugent’s] was of the soft variety and it set us back. We were eight points down at half time and we equated it to last Saturday night when our backs were to the wall and we told them we hadn’t played.
“We weren’t winning the breaks. Clare absolutely cleaned us out on the breaks in the first half. It looked like our legs were heavy and we just weren’t reacting to the breaking ball. We tried to lift them an they came out very strong at the start of the sec- ond half and we got a very important goal. The players just can’t do it the
easy route. We didn’t play in the first half, quite obviously. We were a lit- tle worried about how the lads would react to the hard game we had last Saturday because they had such lit- tle time to recover. Then we didn’t hit the ground running.
“But in fairness to Clare, it was a very gutsy performance from them to take the lead and then when we came back so strong they took an- other five-point lead. We had to think very deep to win it.”
True, but that’s of little consolation to Clare.