Quarter-final win ‘will mean nothing unless we back it up’ – Talty

*Clare manager, Evan Talty. Photograph: Burren Eye Photography

PROGRESSING to an All-Ireland semi-final will “mean nothing” unless Clare’s ladies footballers can back it up.

That was the view declared by manager, Evan Talty after his charges recorded a comprehensive 3-11 0-04 quarter-final win over Longford to seal their passage to the last four.

Unlike their final group encounter against Louth which resulted in defeat in Cusack Park, Clare showed much more energy, Talty felt. “What we really went after was get-ting a performance today and not fearing knock-out football but embracing it. You can’t win anything unless you play pressure games and the key is to perform in them. You could just see that there was hunger and energy out there today. We had that against Louth but didn’t take our chances while today we took most of our chances and that was the big difference”.

Acknowledging the importance of the win, the Kilmurry Ibrickane clubman said it must serve as a building block. “Today was a big result but it will mean noting unless we back it up. In general, at half-time etc, these girls don’t need a lot of coaching. If you go through our team, they’ve either won All-Stars, won O’Connor Cups and played in big games all their lives. So when we have that experience in our dressing room, we don’t need to say a whole lot to them. Once they bring that energy and intensity, there are very few ladies football teams at this level that could live with it but it’s about bring that every day.

“Against Laois, we have to bring the same performance as they’re a really good side. Ef-fectively, you don’t have to be the best team all year and we certainly haven’t been the best team all year. Laois already beat us and we got relegated from Division 2 of the Na-tional league. “You’ve only got to be the best team from now on and breaking that down, that means being the best team for 60 minutes twice. That’s it so if you perform for 60 minutes twice, then you’re going places so that’s something to go after in two weeks time,” Talty added.