Galway 4-25 – Clare 0-20 at Pearse Stadium, Salthill
IT STARTED badly, tailed off a little in the middle and the less said about the end the better.
What can you say about Clare’s forgettable championship exit to neighbours Galway? Revisiting what was Clare’s biggest championship defeat in seven years is made all the more painful by the fact that without a competitive game for the next six months, this will be the lasting impression of 2011 for players, management and supporters alike.
With expectations raised from the encouraging display against Tipperary, the reality soon hit home as a determined Galway side, with a considerable point to prove themselves after their highly criticised performance against Dublin in the Leinster semi-final, tore Clare apart in the opening twenty minutes.
Again it was the concession of goals emanating from green defending that did the damage and that more than anything else is the main reason for Clare’s heavy final defeat. For the third successive competitive game, they conceded four goals, making it 18 in only eight games while only scoring six goals themselves in the same period. Cutting out that deficiency, backed by the fact that Clare reached the 20 score mark for backto-back championship games would have made this a much more even tie. However, in the wake of Galway’s devastating firepower, the fact that Clare didn’t possess any goal threat and never troubled goalkeeper James Skehill for even a routine catch left Clare in a no-win situation. In addition all but five points of Galway’s 425 came from play while almost half of Clare’s total was from frees.
Those are indeed damning stats that tell their own tale as all Galway had to do was look at the DVD of the Tipperary game and employ the same fluid tactics up front. In truth, Clare showed that they had learned very little defensively from the Tipperary game as they allowed Galway to drag defenders out of position, leaving acres of space inside to exploit. Clare would have been better served by remaining more as a back six and defend zonally.
And yet despite the comprehensive 17 point defeat, there still is a niggling feeling that things might have been different had Clare won the toss and chose to play with the conditions. Both sides were vunerable confidence-wise following their recent provincial defeats and with a young side, Clare might have relished the aid of the conditions and taken the game to Galway like they did against Tipperary last time out.
Instead, however it was Galway who struck early and decisively by finding the net twice by the 12th minute. Clare should have heeded the warning sign when Joe Canning crashed a shot off the crossbar after only 90 seconds and as Galway dragged the Clare full-back line out the field, they left Damien Hayes free inside.
A Hayes point in the fifth minute cancelled out Nicky O’Connell’s first minute free and the Portumna man exploited the space again only two minutes later when seizing on a David Burke ball over the top to find the net.
With Clare slow to react, again it was Hayes who was the catalyst for the second goal in the 12th minute, collecting a defensive free before offloading for Iarla Tanninan to shoot against the post with Ger Farragher applying the finish.
Clare attempted to put out the fire but there were so many fires at that stage that the fire brigade should have been called but would have done well to get through the heavy traffic. Clare did manage to calm matters down however when employing Nicky O’Connell as a sweeper and while it took the visitors until the 19th minute to score from play through Fergal Lynch, the deficit was still only six points by the 20th minute following further points from the lively Conor McGrath and Caimin Morey.
That was until the mercurial talents of Joe Canning came to the fore with a full range of skills in an eight minute period. First he converted a straightforward free in the 21st minute, added an inch perfect lineball three minutes later from the 20 metre line but the highlight undoubtedly came in the 29th minute with Galway’s third goal. Picking up possession in the right corner, he shrugged aside the challenge of Nicky O’Connell, avoided the clutches of Cian Dillon by balancing the sliothar expertly on his stick before rifling a shot past Philip Brennan. The goalkeeper did ensure that there wouldn’t be further damage when somehow stopping a Joe Gantley point blank effort in first half injury-time but there was still a sizeable 10 point gap (3-13 to 0-12) for Clare to make up at the break.
With the breeze to come, Clare wounds were not life-threatening but within five minutes of the restart, they need a life-support machine after a high challenge by James McInerney on Joe Canning that saw the Newmarket man receive a straight red card.
With that, the result was merely an inevitability and the pace and intensity of the game dropped considerably. Clare never gave up and through the workrate of Cian Dillon and points from Conor McGrath, Caimin Morey and Nicky O’Connell’s unerring freetaking, they kept plugging away. However, they never looked like even getting a goal while Galway emptied the bench and grabbed a fourth goal at their ease in the 54th minute when Farragher supplied a teasing ball over the top for Alan Kerins to pull to the net.
The game had petered out long before the final whistle sounded as much like last year, Clare were left with a bitter aftertaste of a devastating defeat following encouraging displays in the Munster championship. It’s one step forward and three to the side it seems.