Clare v Tipperary - GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Final
By John Harrington
Regrets? Clare joint-manager Donal Moloney had more than a few after his team’s defeat to Tipp in today’s All-Ireland SHC Quarter-Final.
In no particular order they included a high wides tally, missed goal chances, and a failure to sustain their momentum after cutting a seven point deficit to the minimum late in the game.
“Huge disappointment, a lot of regrets," said Moloney. "Probably in certain patches of the game probably cost us - from the seventh or eighth minute of the first half, the few minutes before half-time, and when we got within a point we couldn’t maintain the momentum.
“Fair play to Tipp, they came back, they’re good champions and got a bit of daylight there again.
“The wides are a regret, and we probably missed goal chances as well, we probably made some mistakes at the back which probably handed them some points as well.
“Those are some of the regrets, but we have a lot to be positive about as well, we had some outstanding performances today. Some of the guys in our full-back line, Jamie Shanahan, Conor Cleary, those guys, and up front Aaron Cunningham, Peter Duggan. We had lots of really positive performances.”
Clare were their own worst enemies at times yesterday. The 18 wides they hit was one obvious failing, but so too was the four points they gifted to Tipp just before half-time from an inability to win their own puck-out.
“That’s something we’ll look back on, it’s part of the game - Tipperary probably made mistakes as well and gifted us a couple of points,” said Moloney.
“Those swings and roundabouts happen, but I wouldn’t be holding players accountable for that.”
Clare v Tipperary - GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter-Final
Clare looked capable of scoring goals whenever they got the ball into their full-forward line, but they didn’t get it in there quite often enough.
The Tipp full-back line struggled to cope with the pace and skill of players like Conor McGrath, Aaron Cunningham, and Shane O’Donnell, but Moloney says that was down to the excellence of his players rather than any Tipperary weakness.
“You wouldn’t consider any line of the Tipp team a weakness given they’re All-Ireland champions.
“It’s much changed since last year but that’s one of our strengths, we have a full-forward line with great mobility, fast hands, we probably didn’t exploit it as much as we could, though we did create a lot of goal chances.”
For the fourth year in a row since winning the 2013 All-Ireland Final, Clare have failed to get back to Croke Park in a Championship season.
But Moloney is adamant they can still take positives from the season and that there’s more to come in the future from this generation of Clare players.
“Yeah, we have a terrific group of players, we still maintain they are the best players in a generation in our county, they have already won a lot.
“We are trying to change how we play the game and that, we are very optimistic. This is our first year, we have learnt a huge amount. We will definitely put that to good use.”
