Clare v Wexford, SHC Qualifier, Cusack Park, Ennis, 5th July, @3.45

nlgbbbblth

Looking forward to the replay. I think Clare have blown their chance. They couldn't pull away in extra time and Wexford were the team that came from behind to get the all-important equalising score.

bruschi

washman3 wrote: »

Liam Dunne must be livid with that defender that delayed taking his own free in normal time.:mad: A free that should have dropped into the Clare square was reversed by the referee for time wasting (and rightly so). This led directly to a Clare point and almost immediately a penalty that was ultimately converted.
Dunne would be well within his rights to give that guy a proper kick in the a##e.

He had the ball down to take a line ball as that's what he thought the call was. The linesman came over and told him it was a free and when he went to move the ball to the correct spot the ref came in, threw it in and then gave a soft free to Clare. He wasn't time wasting, and it was a cock up by the lines man and ref

Browney7

bruschi wrote: »

He had the ball down to take a line ball as that's what he thought the call was. The linesman came over and told him it was a free and when he went to move the ball to the correct spot the ref came in, threw it in and then gave a soft free to Clare. He wasn't time wasting, and it was a cock up by the lines man and ref

Yeah that's what I thought as well. A lot of dubious decisions by the ref yesterday!

Fireball07

The most baffling thing about the game was definitely Davy taking more off for extra-time, after just bringing him on. Morey has some faults for sure, but he's possibly the fastest hurler in the country, his stamina is unbelievable too and in extra-time, he would have cleaned up. And he did make a big impact when he did come on... madness not to play him all through.


I was very impressed with Wexford's work rate, they hassled and harried Clare brilliantly. Physically, they are strong and were much better at winning clean possession than Clare, which is such a huge asset.

They played some great low ball into an isolated full-forward line which paid dividends, but towards the end, they withdrew more and more players and hit a lot of aimless ball, which killed them. Some awful wides too. They have some decent forwards, but they have to make those scores count.



I was impressed with Tony Kelly, thought it was his best performance this year. He's not the type of player who controls a game, he can be a bit of a peripheral figure, but he got on the ball a lot yesterday and hit some inspirational scores.

Conor McGrath was excellent, although the defending for his goal was pathetic from O'Hanlon, completely on the wrong side and it cost them a win. Colin Ryan kept them in the game, and Dillon was strong at the back. Pa Kelly superb and is a much better keeper than Tuts, no doubt about that.

letowski

T'was a crazy with regards to Morey. I would have had him on even in normal time as Pat O'Connor was having a poor game, dropping balls and hitting a bad wide. Morey's pace and attacking threat would have helped.

A few other things;

Tony Kelly shouldn't be on 21/penalties. He strike rate must be 1/4.

O'Donovan and Cunningham would have been perfect subs to bring in but strangely weren't brought in.

Conlon's lack of form is detrimental for us. We have a complete lack of ball winning options and half back lines can dominate Clare easily. I think there is too much pressure on the man.

purplepanda

Wexford probably should have won in normal time & I thought they wouldn't do much in extra time but despite going down 3 points with 5 mins to go they came back for the draw at least.

Thought WX had some very promising periods of play & some good interchange & passing movement between the players at times. The amount of wides & wayward shooting was the deciding factor & something that needs to be worked on for the replay, a bit more composure is certainly needed.

It perhaps looks like we are improving but the replay will be a very stern test & the expectations will be higher now. We certainly have enough young talent coming through after waiting many years, now the composure & teamwork needs to be worked moving onwards.

Well done to both sides for a entertaining match! There was plenty of pressure on both teams all game but still some really good hurling played by both sides so here's hoping for more of the same next week

marco_polo

letowski wrote: »

T'was a crazy with regards to Morey. I would have had him on even in normal time as Pat O'Connor was having a poor game, dropping balls and hitting a bad wide. Morey's pace and attacking threat would have helped.

A few other things;

Tony Kelly shouldn't be on 21/penalties. He strike rate must be 1/4.

O'Donovan and Cunningham would have been perfect subs to bring in but strangely weren't brought in.

Conlon's lack of form is detrimental for us. We have a complete lack of ball winning options and half back lines can dominate Clare easily. I think there is too much pressure on the man.

I couldn't put my finger on it until you mentioned it but I think dip in Conlons form is probably one of the biggest factors in this years performances so far. We have an abundance of fast skillful forwards but not too many like him that can win their own ball in the air.

I do think we should probably have another look at Duggan next week, sure he was only ok against Cork but I do think he has plenty to offer the team.

He is probably not a great fit in terms of the shape of the team as Davy tends to line it up (or Honan either but his form doesn't seem that great atm), but then again the current system doesn't seem to be working well for us this so far this year in any case, so maybe we need to look at that as well.

rodge68

This may be stupid but does anyone think that Conlon is too bulked up ?? Happened a club man of ours he was on the Clare training panel and got carried away and turned into a right muscle man but his hurling really suffered for it, slow and slow reflexes etc and is now a very average for the club now !!

letowski

rodge68 wrote: »

This may be stupid but does anyone think that Conlon is too bulked up ?? Happened a club man of ours he was on the Clare training panel and got carried away and turned into a right muscle man but his hurling really suffered for it, slow and slow reflexes etc and is now a very average for the club now !!

Its hard to know rodge, his touch and movement isn't what it was, a bit like alot of his teammates. The problem as I see it is that teams know if they can get on top of him they effectively cut out Clare's primary possession. Teams give him alot of timber and he has taken some hard knocks in the last 12 months.

It's a huge issue and one of the main weakeness in the team that haven't been addressed (along with the defence conceding goal chances). If Conlon does pick up form though, this could drastically improve Clare.

marco_polo

Hopefully he is just a little off the boil and I don't think you could say it is anymore than that based on a handful of games, to be honest a good few of the team don't look near as sharp as they should be at this stage of the summer.

Some of the first touches and handling yesterday was more like what you'd expect in the first round of the Waterford crystal cup than a July championship game.

Whatever is up we will need to show a hell of alot of improvement next weekend to stay in the hunt, at the moment we are miles behind where the three most impressive teams so far look to be at (Limerick, Cork and KK).

GrandSoftDay

marco_polo wrote: »

Hopefully he is just a little off the boil, to be honest a good few of the team don't look near as sharp as they should be at this stage of the summer. Some of the first touches and handling yesterday was more like what you'd expect in the first round of the Waterford crystal cup than a July championship game.

Whatever is up we will need to show a hell of alot of improvement next weekend to stay in the championship.

Pat O Connor had a very bad game aswell I thought and he was a player that always stood out to me as playing well even when the rest of the team weren't firing. It's really hard to take any positives from yesterday really

marco_polo

GrandSoftDay wrote: »

Pat O Connor had a very bad game aswell I thought and he was a player that always stood out to me as playing well even when the rest of the team weren't firing. It's really hard to take any positives from yesterday really

Tony Kelly, McGrath and Cian Dillion had very good games I though, outside of that there not much to be overly positive about, a few of the rest did ok mainly in the back division, but I though that O'Connor, Conlon, Podge and Galvin in particular were very disappointing relative to the standards they have set for themselves last year.

I think we can still still feature at the business end of the championship, but time for rediscovering form is running out fast.

GrandSoftDay

marco_polo wrote: »

Tony Kelly, McGrath and Cian Dillion had very good games I though, outside of that there not much to be overly positive about, a few of the rest did ok mainly in the back division, but I though that O'Connor, Conlon, Podge and Galvin in particular were very disappointing relative to the standards they have set for themselves last year.

I think we can still still feature at the business end of the championship, but time for rediscovering form is running out fast.

Even if we get past Wexford now the schedule will be hectic for the rest of the year between u21 and seniors. It's a big ask 2 years in a row considering they looked very fatigued yesterday. It's possible they can do it but I'm living in hope more than anticipation. I thought we would get a big performance from them after the Cork game but we didn't improve one bit.

dastardly00

Does Cahill has confirmed that RTE will be showing the replay on Saturday.

washman3

bruschi wrote: »

He had the ball down to take a line ball as that's what he thought the call was. The linesman came over and told him it was a free and when he went to move the ball to the correct spot the ref came in, threw it in and then gave a soft free to Clare. He wasn't time wasting, and it was a cock up by the lines man and ref

I disagree.! I have even watched it again and I'm convinced he knew exactly what it was and that he was just 'playing innocent' trying to run down the clock. Another point for Wexford at that stage would almost definitely have sealed the win.