*Clare captain, Eoin Cleary in possession. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
EOIN CLEARY maintained that Clare’s footballers have learned the hard way after paying the price for sloppy mistakes in their Munster final defeat to Kerry.
Cleary a member of the county senior panel since 2014 was lining out in his first provincial decider in the Clare colours as Kerry proved much too strong in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday.
Players are understandably disappointed with the manner of the fourteen point loss. “We made uncharacteristic mistakes, on reflection we were nervous and I don’t know why, we didn’t perform to the level we are capable of and we’re disappointed, when you don’t do yourself justice you will always have regrets and we will have plenty of them after today”.
Such mistakes were punished by Kerry raiding for goals with Tony Brosnan, Dara Moynihan and David Clifford raising green flags in the opening half. “The mistakes out the field, we didn’t track runners all over the field, no one could hold their hand up at half time and say they were giving a great performance for the team to try get us over the line. Unfortunately against a team like Kerry, you need fifteen players firing and we didn’t get that today, we have to regroup now for our three group games to try get out of the group”.
“They are All-Ireland champions for a reason, mistakes we made in other games were probably not punished as clearly as they were today but Kerry are a top quality side and All-Ireland champions for a reason, if you make mistakes out the field you will be punished and we learned that the hard way today but look we will learn from it,” Eoin outlined.
Extra pain accompanied given the manner of the Clare performance, the Miltown Malbay native admitted. “Any time you lose it is a tough feeling but when you lose and do yourselves justice while dying with your boots on it is that bit easier to take, unfortunately today we didn’t do that. The great Clare crowd that was here, we heard the roar coming out and they were all behind us, it was great to see but unfortunately we didn’t put a performance together that warranted the support”.
He continued, “Out of all the three games it was the least pressure game, after getting relegated in the league the Cork game was a huge pressure game, the Limerick game had expectation so there was more pressure again but we dealt it for those games, today we had a shot at Kerry, the All-Ireland champions and we didn’t take it. When we played them in Ennis in 2014 and 2017 we had them on the rack, we put complete performances together and on those days we lost to better teams but we died with our boots on, today we didn’t so we will have regrets from it”.
Already this year, Clare have demonstrated their ability to bounce back from setbacks. After suffering relegation from Division 2 of the Allianz National Football League, ending their six year stint in the second tier, they defeated Cork in the championship for the first time since 1997 and reached a first Munster final in eleven years.
Such a response is now needed in the All-Ireland series, Cleary maintained. “We see the Clare crowd, they want us to be playing the best teams in the country, they want to support us, we’ve three big games and we hope we will get the support, the hurlers are going well, we’re asking people to dig deep in their pockets, we’re very grateful that they are and hopefully we’ll get support in the next few weeks in the three group games that we have because we will need very bit of it”.
“Colm said it beforehand that this is game one of four, we lost today but we will regroup, we’ve two weeks to do all we can to win that game and put ourselves in contention at getting out of the group”.
First up is the visit of Donegal to Cusack Park on Saturday week and it will be a tell-tale sign as to how Clare’s All-Ireland SFC campaign will pan out. “The home games are huge to us, we’re always very difficult to beat at home, we want to put together a performance at home. Donegal are a serious outfit, no more so than Kerry they have players on that panel who have All-Ireland medals, we will be up against it but we know if we perform like we did today we won’t get a result and if we perform like we did against Cork and Limerick we should have enough to get over the line so hopefully we can put those performances together the next day rather than the performance we gave today”.
