Clare GAA Discussion - 2024 All Ireland Hurling Champions

Clareman

BloodyBill wrote: »

Stephen McNamara scored some fine goals,great athlete. Ultimately always injured and a one trick pony ...couldn't score points..wouldnt pass ...couldn't. We wouldn't have won in 95 without him.
O Donnell is fantastic..I could name whole Championship seasons when he was abandoned 'up top' and asked the chase 2 or 3 backs and make the ball stick until the cavalry caught up. His vision, his tackling and his unselfishness stand out. I couldn't be critical of him with some of the diabolical ball that he has got over the years.

My argument would be that a corner forward should be selfish and should be scoring goals, I honestly think that SoD has been protected by the 2 man full forward line, unseen work, poor ball, etc. etc. excuses that have been trotted out. Last year he scored 1-1, the year before he scored 3 points in the group stage of Munster and followed that up with 1-8 in 3 games, before that he scored 2-4 in 3 games (2-2 in 1 game), before that he scored 1-6 (1-3 against Laois), before that he scored 1-3.

Considering the amount of games that we've played in the past 5 years I think he scoring return isn't good enough for someone that is supposed to be our best player. I know a lot is made of his role in the team, but if he was as good as some Clare supporters make him out to be he'd be excelling at club level. I know I'm being harsh on him but take the All Ireland final replay of 2013 out of his career and he hasn't produced it but for that 1 day alone he'll always be a Clare hurling legend.

caddy16

Clareman wrote: »

SoD our best corner forward of all time???? Name 3 games where he played well for the full 70 minutes??? I'd say he's potentially our best corner forward but inconsistencies means I'd argue that he's not even Eire Ogs best as Stephen Mac has more medals than him

A better player isn't defined by medals. There's no comparison between the two of them.

Clareman

caddy16 wrote: »

A better player isn't defined by medals. There's no comparison between the two of them.

True and comparing players from different eras is always open to opinions, I'd imagine that SoD would love to have Conor Clancy winning/breaking ball of him or Fingers playing him into position but he doesn't and in my opinion he hasn't produced the goods for Clare and is overrated.

caddy16

Clareman wrote: »

True and comparing players from different eras is always open to opinions, I'd imagine that SoD would love to have Conor Clancy winning/breaking ball of him or Fingers playing him into position but he doesn't and in my opinion he hasn't produced the goods for Clare and is overrated.

Overrated might be a a bit harsh. He does a huge amount of unseen work.

Clareman

Ahhh, the good old unseen work, call me old fashioned but I much prefer to see forwards doing seen work like scoring

caddy16

Clareman wrote: »

Ahhh, the good old unseen work, call me old fashioned but I much prefer to see forwards doing seen work like scoring

Fingers???

Clareman

Sorry, left out corner, I think corner forwards should be scoring

lab man

Clare making some amount of mistakes

LuckyGent88

I’ll take that at HT. not that pretty from us but still in the ball game. Think our biggest problem have been the puck outs. Poor execution on planned strategy plenty of times.

Let’s stay in this and then spring the bench which I think is stronger than limericks and has game winners.

Clareman

The pulling of the quick puck out is badly affecting us

lab man

Getting well beat at the moment tk would want to score this

LuckyGent88

Well that went as expected really. Limerick just so much stronger in every area. Too many passengers and average players on our side.

Hegerty given the freedom of the park. He is literally the key to Limerick’s system.

Clareman

Beaten by 10 points, very disappointing but not unexpected unfortunately.

keeponhurling

Clareman wrote: »

The pulling of the quick puck out is badly affecting us

Was just thinking the same thing. I’d say they was a key part of the game plan.
What was the ref doing there, didn’t seem that quick to me

deaddonkey15

Clareman wrote: »

Beaten by 10 points, very disappointing but not unexpected unfortunately.

Limerick are built like units and we send out lads who look like under 21s. Always going to be an uphill battle from there.

keeponhurling

Ultimately Limerick have a stronger team and panel.
We have things to work on. Wouldn’t have changed the result today, but maybe the next day.

The last 10 mins was a bit worrying. A lot of those Limerick points were virtually uncontested, like a shooting exercise.
Were the team just gassed or what ?

Clareman

We're probably the weakest team in Munster now. We don't have a half forward line or a midfield, out half backs are always a risk.

letowski

I suppose a 10 point loss was expected, if even it flattered us.

We’re completely reliant on Tony Kelly. We don’t have any other free scoring forwards like the other top counties. Maybe we should try Rodgers the next day?

I didn’t get taking off Fitzgerald, he was battling Byrnes well in the first half (although I wanted Shanagher on). Our half forward line pretty much won nothing in the second half. Completely dominated.

I also didn’t get our half back line, particularly the wing backs, not bothering to mark their men. It made little sense, didn’t Hegarty and Morrissey get 9 points between them? Usually ok your center back can drop and be lax in marking, but all 3 standing off their men, you’ll get punished at this level.

Some positives, but we really need more good half backs and half forwards coming through, with size, athleticism and hurling to compete with these sides.

Tony Kelly of course outstanding.

Clareman

Our backs were setup to avoid conceding goals, that meant keeping players back in their positions.

Besides Kelly I'm struggling to take positives from today's performance.

letowski

Clareman wrote: »

Our backs were setup to avoid conceding goals, that meant keeping players back in their positions.

Besides Kelly I'm struggling to take positives from today's performance.

I get that, but I think we should have made in game adjustments when the game was pulling away from us. Ultimately we would have lost either way anyway.

BloodyBill

Clareman wrote: »

Ahhh, the good old unseen work, call me old fashioned but I much prefer to see forwards doing seen work like scoring

If Callanan got the ball O Donnell gets he wouldn't score either.

Pogue eile

Clareman wrote: »

Our backs were setup to avoid conceding goals, that meant keeping players back in their positions.

That in its self is a very strange approach to playing Limerick from Lohan, that's not really where Limerick beat teams, played right into their hands turning it into a middle third game.

Pogue eile

BloodyBill wrote: »

If Callanan got the ball O Donnell gets he wouldn't score either.

I know you are a bit down and all but catch yourself on a small bit.

To be fair to O'Donnell someone said earlier that he does a lot of unseen work and by god he did a full 70 minutes of it again today!

Clareman

letowski wrote: »

I get that, but I think we should have made in game adjustments when the game was pulling away from us. Ultimately we would have lost either way anyway.

The lack of adjustments was worrying, especially when it was clear that our half forwards were being destroyed

Clareman

BloodyBill wrote: »

If Callanan got the ball O Donnell gets he wouldn't score either.

2 corner forwards for Clare, 1 scores 1-1, the other scores nothing and doesn't do anything, besides winning a free in the first half I couldn't see anything positive from SoD today

Clareman

Pogue eile wrote: »

I know you are a bit down and all but catch yourself on a small bit.

To be fair to O'Donnell someone said earlier that he does a lot of unseen work and by god he did a full 70 minutes of it again today!

He did the full 70 minutes of being unseen today alright........

keeponhurling

When SOD does win the first ball, he often takes it into trouble.
The Limerick backs handled him well today in fairness, not one of SOD’s better days

Clareman

Pogue eile wrote: »

That in its self is a very strange approach to playing Limerick from Lohan, that's not really where Limerick beat teams, played right into their hands turning it into a middle third game.

Very strange, a 10 point loss is a hammering no matter what way you look at it, conceding 36 scores is shocking.

3 Munster hurling championship matches for Clare this year and we're beaten by 8, 10 and 10 points, hard not to be depressed with not only those types of losses by the nature of the losses.

Clareman

keeponhurling wrote: »

When SOD does win the first ball, he often takes it into trouble.
The Limerick backs handled him well today in fairness, not one of SOD’s better days

He has a very strange style where he holds his hurley over his head with his elbow bent, he has to adjust almost every time he goes near the ball, he also struggles to get possession of the ball cleanly first time which gives defenders time to close him down. I think he had 1 shot today which went wide in the first half.

letowski

Distribution and use of possession has probably been the poorest part of Lohan’s short tenure for Clare so far. Even when Shanagher came on we hardly got any high ball for him to go up 1v1 with Morrissey. Very little ball out in front of our inside line today. It’s when we lose a player like Colm Galvin the forwards inside suffer with poor ball,

Either way we were blown out of it between the 40s in the second half so it would not of mattered. Taylor, SOD and Shanagher spent most of their time chasing after Limerick half backs than running onto ball.