*Shane Hassett. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
STRENGTH of Clare’s senior hurling panel was stressed by selector Shane Hassett in the wake of their All-Ireland quarter-final win.
Clare made two changes for the twelve point win over Wexford from their six point loss to Limerick in the Munster final with David Reidy and Aron Shanagher starting in place of Darragh Lohan and Aidan McCarthy.
For Shanagher it was his first start of the year. The showings in training have influenced team selection, selector Hassett outlined. “We brought on lads today who mightn’t have seen a whole lot of time in earlier games. They came on and made a contribution. This takes everyone on the panel. For the past two weeks it’s the guys that haven’t played the game time that pushed the whole team. A couple of lads came on today because of what they have been doing in training. We will need everyone on the panel going to face Kilkenny”.
Tipperary native Shane explained, “early on we had a lot of the ball and did some good hurling but probably made too many mistakes and gave away a few soft frees which kept them in the game. Then we went down a man and we knew we knew we would under serious pressure. Then they went down a man and when we went in at half time we were able to make a plan for when we would go back to fifteen. We pushed on then and I am really happy with how we applied ourselves in the five minutes before half time and the five minutes after the break”.
Reflecting on their second half goals from Shane O’Donnel and Ian Galvin, the UL graduate noted, “Shane has an eye for goal and when we really needed it he struck and it put us that step ahead. In fairness Ian Galvin has been flying. He deserved his chance today and he took it, fair play to both lads”.
Kilkenny will pose “another big test” in the All-Ireland semi-final, he acknowledged. “Kilkenny are Kilkenny for a reason. They are one of the top two or three teams in the country and always have been. They are really hard to beat, they play a great style of hurling. We came up against them twice this year and just about got on the right side of the results but that was league at the end of the day. We haven’t beaten them in championship in the last two years. We have a chance to correct that now and all focus will be on that”.
