This article is from page 71 of the 2011-02-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 71 JPG
MICHEÁL McDermott bristled with anger at the end of it all. Even before he opened his mouth you could see it in his face. Clare were done by the refereeing decisions over the 70 minutes and he wasn’t afraid to say it either.
But it wasn’t all about Shaun McLaughlin’s performance – he had some words for his players too. Pride at the way they rolled up their sleeves in the face of adversity in second half, utter dejection at the poverty of their play in the first 35 minutes when Clare just turned up, but didn’t play.
“The first half was very disappointing, very, very disappointing,” he admitted. “We didn’t get on the breaking ball. We didn’t support like we have been playing in the McGrath Cup. All round it was a disappointing display in the first half.
“They out-muscled us a little bit in the first half. They were very tight, very tenacious and very hungry for the win in the first half. We lacked that little bit of hunger to match them,” he added.
But the second half was a transformation as harsh half-time words saw a rejuvenated Clare take the game to a Leitrim side that only fielded four of last year’s Connacht championship side.
“The second half was much better and it was disappointing to lose after that. Gordon Kelly was an awful loss because he’s an inspirational guy on the field, while David Tubridy’s send- ing off was another huge blow to us, but after that they gave it everything and really deserved something from the game.
“Our second half performance showed the character that’s within the team. It showed the will to win in this team when we were down to 13 men and it showed the savage hunger and level of fitness.
“We came at them and at them, ran at them and the numbers game of them having two more players and a few refereeing decisions caught at us in the end. That was the difference between winning and losing.
“Being two points up, the legs were getting very tired. There was an awful lot of work to be done. When you have 13 men against 15, even when you get a score you’re handing them possession back and they eventually used their extra men to effect and got the scores from it, but they got two frees near the end that I would question,” added McDermott as Clare’s campaign got off to the worst possible start.
Still, McDermott accentuated the positive as he looked forward to the remaining seven games.
“Nobody was promoted today,” he said.
“It was the first day and it was disappointing, but it leaves the trap door locked now and we have to win every one of seven remaining games. We know what we have to do and we have to believe that we can do it. More of the character we showed in the second half is what we’re looking for in the rest of the league.”