Conor McDermott tries to block Aidan Moriarty. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
CLONLARA’s strength in depth helped them get off the board in their second outing of the Clare SHC and they’re hoping it will do the trick once again as they bid for successive victories.
Donal Madden’s side recovered from a one point opening round loss against Feakle to bounce back with an impressive 1-20 0-19 win over Whitegate.
For the 1997 All-Ireland minor winner, there were plenty of positives to take from their four point victory. “We fought it out. We finished strong and knew we’d have to go until the final whistle as Whitegate certainly weren’t going to roll over. It was a big game for both teams and they probably fancied their chances of beating us and threw everything at us but we were able to match that before our bench probably proved the difference in the end”.
That bench saw Mícheál O’Loughlin, Cian Moriarity and David Fitzgerald point on their introduction with Oisin O’Brien brought on to try curb the influence of Conor Whelan while Cormac O’Donovan also added experience from the sideline. “It’s a 20 man game, 21 if you could get away with it in such heat out there so we probably had the bigger panel and look that probably was the small deciding factor late on.
Leadership has been evident in their campaign to date, Madden maintained. “We’re not out of the woods yet though, relegation is still looming over our heads so our goal today was just to win the game and ease the pressure. We’re a proud club and we want to stay senior. We’re not dreaming of anything else at the moment until that is taken out of the equation. There’s huge heart, huge guts and huge leaders in that dressing room and I think they stood up to-day so I’m proud of them to be honest”.
Youth is also making its mark for Clonlara, he said. “Everyone knows that we’ve got a couple of injuries like Kieran and Colm Galvin and probably lost one or two more today such as Paul McNamara. We actually started five guys that played interme-diate hurling last year and they’ve really stood up. That’s what we need in this club, young lads coming through so they’re great guys and are giving their all so we’re delighted to get off the mark today”.
Whitegate boss, Terence Fahy agreed that the extra impact off the bench helped to swing the tie in Clonlara’s favour. “It’s a big disappointment. We came here fighting for our lives in the championship and we just came up short against a good Clonlara team. They just had a bit of extra cover near the end as I think they got 20 players on the field while we only had 17 so they did have a bit more depth and a bit more impact from the bench that we had. They certainly finished strong and I felt that their ability to win the breaking ball around the middle of the field was a kind of defining factor in the final ten minutes. They really built a platform from breaks, flooded forward from that and took some great scores. Our boys were under pressure at the back as they was some good ball going into the inside forwards for Clonlara”.
Fahy and Whitegate now face one of the favourites for the Canon Hamilton when they clash with Sixmilebridge in Dr Daly Park on Sunday. “We’re playing Sixmilebridge who are still amongst the standard-bearers in the county and are flying it at the moment. Look, that’s why we have been training all year to play big games in high summer and we also love playing in Cusack Park so we’ll just have to go home, suck up our medicine and hopefully learn lessons in order to come back stronger”.
Newmarket-on-Fergus are in a need of a win when they go toe to toe with Madden’s Clonlara on Friday evening. Everything is up for grabs according to Blues boss, Tomás Ryan. “There’s still a lot of play for in this group and when you analyse it, there’s probably four teams still battling it out for two quarter-final places so you just don’t know how it’s going to go. All we can do is go out and try to win our last game against Clonlara and hope that a win can take us over the line. We just need to put our heads down again and prepare for a big battle against Clonlara whose tails will be up after a big win against Whitegate so we have to match that and drive on again.”
Having led by seven points approaching the end of their third round game versus Feakle, Newmarket-on-Fergus were left shellshocked when a late Killian Bane goal secured a share of the spoils for the East Clare men. “Sometimes a draw feels like a defeat so immediately after it probably feels like that but it’s still a point on the board. It’s hard to see how the group will pan out but it’s still in our own hands as we had to win the next day regardless of if we won today. So it is disappointing as we probably should have seen it out but didn’t. However, when we sit back and look at it, I think we’d be very proud of the performance which we were”.
Clawing their way back was a sign of character, Feakle boss PJ Kelleher emphasised. “The boys showed great battling qualities to hang in there. I thought we came back really strongly after being hit by the two goals but Newmarket to their credit managed to build up a three point lead again. There’s great stuff in these boys, they never give up and I couldn’t say enough about them as they repeatedly put their bodies on the line.
“We knew that it’s in them but it’s only in situations likes this when you really need lads to stand up that you see the true character of these players. And in the end they did it and it was great to get something out of that game. There’s a fine line in this group still between qualifying or relegation so I don’t even know what the permutations are now of this result just yet. That point could be valuable but all we know is that we’ve a big game to come against Whitegate in a few weeks time and we have to be ready for what is going to be another huge battle,” the Bodyke native said.
