This article is from page 70 of the 2011-05-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 70 JPG
Cork 1-23 – Clare 0-11 at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork
LET’S indulge Clare senior football for a moment by picking positives from what was in the end a 15-point pummelling at the hands of the AllIreland champions.
Ten points from play; the revelation that was Rory Donnelly as he hit five of them in his greatest day in a Clare geansaí; the spirit the side showed in the early stages of the second half when pegging it back to six points.
It was this revival on the back of three points in a row that opened up the possibility of Clare making a game of it with the wind at their backs. Rousing stuff as Cork looked bothered. ALAS, it was Clare who were bothered by the end, especially Graham Kelly as his sending off for the second successive championship match being the final implosion of a home stretch that saw them concede the final seven points of the game to a rampant Cork side.
To say it was a disastrous finale is putting it mildly – the spirit and honest endeavour that had characterised much of their performance was washed away in the welter of controversy near the end.
That it came to this with Kelly leaving the field to a chorus of boos from the Cork supporters in the crowd of 4,186 was rough justice on the rest of the team – they’d taken the fight to Cork thanks to Rory Donnelly’s tour de force and played themselves into the parish of having their honour intact.
This didn’t look like happening in the first half as Cork picked up where the left off in the National League final win over Dublin by cruising into a 1-9 to 0-4 interval lead. They had the wind, but at times it was too easy as they used the midfield dominance of Aidan Walsh and Alan O’Connor to rack up the scores.
Ciaran Sheehan made hay down the right flank; Donncha O’Connor was his chief ally in attack; Daniel Goulding never looked like missing and with that the scores tumbled as they moved 0-6 to 0-2 clear by the 18th minute.
It took a very good save from Joe Hayes to foil Ciaran Sheehan’s goalbound effort in the 20th minute, but a minute later Hayes was powerless to prevent Donncha Walsh palming the ball to the empty net after being put through by Paddy Kelly. Daniel Goulding (2) and Aidan Walsh followed up with points and it was Cork in a canter, with Clare in radical need of surgery around the field.
One change saw Gary Brennan relocated to full-forward, a move that yielded a score before half-time as he slipped Michael Shields before firing over his second point.
Brennan stayed on the edge of the square for the start of the second half as Clare started with Darren O’Neill and Ger Quinlan at midfield and set about making a game of it.
They did just that with three points inside the first three minutes and with that hope floated that Clare could make a game of it. Alan Clohessy, Rory Donnelly and David Tubridy hit those points as the space opened out before Clare’s forwards.
The same space was there for the remainder of the game, but the gaping holes that Cork managed to open up in Clare’s defence meant that whenever danger threatened they had a ready supply of scores on tap.
Clare’s early rally was snuffed out quickly thanks to points from Donncha O’Connor (2) and Pearse O’Neill – a pattern that repeated itself after Donnelly and Tubridy again found the range.
However, when Cork hit four-in-arow between the 52nd and 59th minutes – the last of those coming from full-back Michael Shields – there were reduced to playing for pride in the closing stages.
Pride that took a battering when Graham Kelly received a red card in the 69th minute as Cork cantered to their point-a-man win.