Donal Moloney vows Clare are still in the race for Liam
Clare v Cork - Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Final
By John Harrington
Clare joint-manager, Donal Moloney, has vowed the Banner County are far from out of this year’s race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
Yesterday’s defeat to Cork in the Munster SHC Final was a sore one, but now they have a new target to focus on after this morning’s draw for the All-Ireland Quarter-Finals that pitted them against Tipperary.
“We’re not out at all, definitely,” said Moloney after yesterday’s match.
“We’re hugely disappointed because we wanted this victory today. Those boys will be hurting hugely, as will the management team.
“We’re not into moral victories or people saying we played well. I appreciate the gesture but it’s meaningless to the team.
“We will pick it up, absolutely. We’ll be disappointed, we’ll have a chat this evening and regroup tomorrow, and we’ll go again.”
Clare struggled to really hit their stride for most of Sunday’s match, and had already made two changes before the start of the first-half as Oisin O’Brien and Podge Collins were replaced.
Clare v Cork - Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Final
Moloney is confident that duo will be all the more fired up for the match against Tipperary because they were called ashore so early against Cork.
“They’re the guys I expect to have to get out of their way in the next two weeks. They’ll be absolutely driven, they’ll be hurt over getting taken off,” he said.
“It’s not about getting taken off, this is a 20-man or a 35-man game. every man puts in his shift. Jason McCarthy came on and played well, Cian Dillon, Cathal Malone, his first game and he was superb.
“We’ve a lot of great players and being part of a team, you put personal disappointment to one side if you’re taken off and you do whatever you can the next day you come into training.”
Clare rallied late in the second-half yesterday to close within two points have trailed by seven, but were then powerless to prevent Cork finishing with a flourish that saw them run out 1-25 to 1-20 winners.
Moloney had no complaints about the result and admitted the Rebels were the better side.
“If you convert your chances you’re the better team, and they converted their chances, we didn’t,” he said.
“Unfortunately we had two goal chances, we got one and hit the woodwork, but they scored some excellent points, particularly when we got close to them. Fair play to them.
“We probably elected to take shots from out the field that we’d normally expect to go over, whether it was the wind or what I don’t know, but we didn’t convert a lot of them, and in one period midway through the second half we had three or four in a row.”
