Clare GAA discussion thread

danganabu

keeponhurling wrote: »

At hand time they were only 2 points down after the gale at their back.

Maybe a bigger problem was the 10 wides they hit, or the goal they gifted Tipp ?

You can't seperate the two though, the wides are as a direct result of the system, you are forced into long range pot shots.

danganabu

buck65 wrote: »

I still maintain that Waterford can go to the final this year.

no way in hell that they can beat KK with the way they set up, KK would eat them without salt.

For Tipp's Cathal Barett, KK have Paul Murphy, for Padraic Maher ditto Cillian Buckley, Mikey Breen/ Michael Fennelly, Seamie/ TJ Reid etc etc, I cant see how anyone could expect a different result, when essientally if anything KK are a more consistent version of Tipp.

Don't underestimate the mental scars that will be left after Sunday, I have always maintained that it is absolutely impossible that all 15 Waterford players fully bought into the system, and that they would go along with it as long as progress was been made, when players start to doubt what they are doing its generally the end of the road.

Clareman

The sweeper system is designed to stop the concession of goals by having an extra player in front of the full backline making it difficult for the forward to get possession while also having the half forwards far up the pitch so there can't be any support runners in the event the forward gets possession. In my opinion on Sunday Waterford gave up too much "easy" possession but also didn't have their half backs far enough up the pitch so support runners were able to feed off the ball. The sweeper system is primarily about reducing the amount your opponents can score and limiting them to long range attempts. There is a MAJOR weakness in the system if your opponents have more than 1 target inside, when Clare did it against Galway in 2013 it worked well cause Joe Canning was pretty much isolated.

Clare are TERRIFIED of conceding goals but play a different type of sweeper than Waterford, personally I think the style of play we had against Kilkenny in the league semi final is good enough to beat any team in the country. We don't have the long range point takers this season for some reason, unless there's a big change between now and the Galway game something will have to be done. Personally I would have 6 forwards running all over the place all day, McGrath is due back, could you imagine McGrath, Podge, SoD and Shanagher running around the place with Kelly & Conlon there as well, we'd have the backs terrified.

One thing that HAS to change as well is our management of our subs, against Waterford in the championship we brought on 2 unfit players, this week we only brought on 2 in total, the right changes at the right time can win/close out a match.

In regards to Loughnane, I think his remarks are more to do with his time as Galway manager rather than anything he did with Clare, a lot of Galway people still question his tactics the day he brought Galway to Cusack Park.

danganabu

Clareman wrote: »

The sweeper system is designed to stop the concession of goals by having an extra player in front of the full backline making it difficult for the forward to get possession while also having the half forwards far up the pitch so there can't be any support runners in the event the forward gets possession. In my opinion on Sunday Waterford gave up too much "easy" possession but also didn't have their half backs far enough up the pitch so support runners were able to feed off the ball. The sweeper system is primarily about reducing the amount your opponents can score and limiting them to long range attempts.

Exactly which is why it was both naive and foolish for Waterford to persist with it in the opening half yesterday and they playing with a gale.

Clareman

danganabu wrote: »

Exactly which is why it was both naive and foolish for Waterford to persist with it in the opening half yesterday and they playing with a gale.

That and the fact that the Gaelic Grounds is 8m shorter than Thurles. Tipp also did a smart thing aswell by playing the ball into the forwards properly.

Figerty

buck65 wrote: »

Waterford though hammered are a good team, Tipp got a run on them as we did in the league going back a couple of years ago. Their system suits them and they had an off day - they will beat Wexford and go to Croke Park.

Clare too are a good team that play a system that works for them, they have shown that they can go 15 v 15 too and win (Cork 2013 all irelands). Clare are more flexible than Waterford and can adjust their game faster if they go behind. Galway though are a bigger threat as they will be primed to show they aren't gutless, with Flynn back they can score.

I still maintain that Waterford can go to the final this year.

The interesting comment from Derek McGrath was that perhaps they were over trained. if they can recover mentally from the match, then they at least have a chance to freshen the legs and to drive on. Time will tell. Waterford are certainly better than the showed.
One other concern would be that while the scored 12 points or so. Two came from line balls..
McGrath can't dismiss the method he uses, but he needs to find a way of solving the problem he has.

Clareman

I wouldn't write Waterford off at all, going into the match they knew that if they lost they'd be playing Wexford in the quarter finals and that no team since 2005 has won Munster and the All Ireland.

ProudDUB

Davy having a pop at local Clare media on Off The Ball now.

cnoc

What's the gist of his interview?

danganabu

Clareman wrote: »

I wouldn't write Waterford off at all, going into the match they knew that if they lost they'd be playing Wexford in the quarter finals and that no team since 2005 has won Munster and the All Ireland.

Do you really think that a team of Waterford's standing could afford not to go all out to win a Munster final?

namloc1980

.... .

letowski

cnoc wrote: »

What's the gist of his interview?

He described the local media as 'horrendous', journalists not having a clue and ex players making wrong assumptions because they dont have any inter county management experience. He feels Clare have achieved alot in five years, citing the AI 2013, League and 2 Waterford Crystals. He talked about how good Donal Og is and how he has changed as a manager over the years.

It was funny, he actually proudly said that before he arrived, Clare had only one Waterford Crystal title, and that we already have two more added under him

I'm bringing a big '5 More Years' banner with me to Thurles on Sunday week!

Figerty

letowski wrote: »

He described the local media as 'horrendous', journalists not having a clue and ex players making wrong assumptions because they dont have any inter county management experience. He feels Clare have achieved alot in five years, citing the AI 2013, League and 2 Waterford Crystals. He talked about how good Donal Og is and how he has changed as a manager over the years.

It was funny, he actually proudly said that before he arrived, Clare had only one Waterford Crystal title, and that we already have two more added under him

I'm bringing a big '5 More Years' banner with me to Thurles on Sunday week!

I think we can look at the league victory in a different light after Tipps destruction of Waterford.
The Waterford Crystals... more glass half empty than half full.. the don't even make the Crystal in Waterford anymore..
The prospective new Limerick Manager wants the current Clare manager to stay in place! No Machiavellian plot there...is there?

Clareman

There's an article here about his interview.

Now, the guy is entitled to his opinion, BUT SO IS EVERYONE ELSE, what does he expect to happen when he becomes an intercounty manager, that everyone ignores him and lets him off to do his own thing, maybe if he wasn't doing TV shows or stupid interviews they might but when you put yourself front and center into the media spotlight then you can expect people to give their opinion.

The Waterford Crystal Cup, f**k off, total Mickey Mouse competition that shouldn't even be mentioned. To win an All Ireland and a National League are great achievements, don't try to bring in a Waterford f**king Crystal Cup into the same bracket, that'd be a bit like saying how great a manager is based on the amount of players picked for the Railway Cup.

I see he's having a go at Clare people having unrealistic expectations about All Ireland's, fair enough winning under 21s doesn't mean that you will win at senior level, BUT WE HAVE WON AT SENIOR LEVEL, he mentions Galway, Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipp as teams that are hard to beat, well Davy Clare have won more All Ireland's in the past 21 years than 3 of those teams combined and also have a far better recent underage record, we should expect to beat them.

I really do hope the rumours of him heading up to Dublin are true, I really am sick of his antics at this stage, his methods are destroying us, he goes on about the great analysis Donal Og was doing on TV, what has that to do with anything? Teams will have far more data available to them that TV analysts thanks to the GPS trackers in the jerseys so he should be doing all that.

To me that whole article is him making excuses cause he's frightened of being beaten by Galway, he's a great man for excuses when he's beaten and for self-praise when he wins.

danganabu

Agree with everything you say Clareman, except the part about far more recent underage success.The other 3 have won 11 minor AI's since Clare's success in 1997. U21 yes, underage no.

Clareman

danganabu wrote: »

Agree with everything you say Clareman, except the part about far more recent underage success.The other 3 have won 11 minor AI's since Clare's success in 1997. U21 yes, underage no.

Good point well made, I should have specified that "recent" would be in the last 5 or so years

danganabu

Clareman wrote: »

Good point well made, I should have specified that "recent" would be in the last 5 or so years

I thought 21 years was the standard barometer only joking btw.

bannerman2005

any idea of the subs for tonights U21 game?

Clareman

danganabu wrote: »

I thought 21 years was the standard barometer only joking btw.

Last year I would have said 20 years, next year I'll say 22

By the way, I'm not thanking our county board for any of the "recent" great underage performance, more the great work that was done by clubs in East Clare, it's scary to think that the best Clare hurling school is now in Limerick, then again it can be argued that having a "weak" Flannan's team can be good for the Clare minors.

Clareman

danganabu wrote: »

Do you really think that a team of Waterford's standing could afford not to go all out to win a Munster final?

Sorry for not replying, I spotted your post earlier and meant to reply.

I don't think any team would go our not to win any final, if it was tiddlewinks they'd want to win it, but there's different levels of wanting to win and players can only "go to the well" so often in a year, Ronan O'Gara had a good article recently highlighting how Paul O'Connell was a great man to target the must win games and raise accordingly. I don't think the Munster Final was a must win game for Waterford as they had a fall back to the quarter final and it's not as if they haven't won Munster in ages. Waterford will be back a lot stronger than their showing on Sunday, I think their system is extremely flawed and is exposed when teams simply play "zonal" against it but they will take beating.

danganabu

Agree re the concept etc. but I have no doubt what so ever that Waterford were going all out to win on Sunday, they needed to win as they admitted themselves. They wouldn't have know about the easier QF until Sat night and you can't really change tact or mentality at that late stage, besides the easier QF is offset by the SF against KK.

Gael85

Clareman wrote: »

The sweeper system is designed to stop the concession of goals by having an extra player in front of the full backline making it difficult for the forward to get possession while also having the half forwards far up the pitch so there can't be any support runners in the event the forward gets possession. In my opinion on Sunday Waterford gave up too much "easy" possession but also didn't have their half backs far enough up the pitch so support runners were able to feed off the ball. The sweeper system is primarily about reducing the amount your opponents can score and limiting them to long range attempts. There is a MAJOR weakness in the system if your opponents have more than 1 target inside, when Clare did it against Galway in 2013 it worked well cause Joe Canning was pretty much isolated.

Clare are TERRIFIED of conceding goals but play a different type of sweeper than Waterford, personally I think the style of play we had against Kilkenny in the league semi final is good enough to beat any team in the country. We don't have the long range point takers this season for some reason, unless there's a big change between now and the Galway game something will have to be done. Personally I would have 6 forwards running all over the place all day, McGrath is due back, could you imagine McGrath, Podge, SoD and Shanagher running around the place with Kelly & Conlon there as well, we'd have the backs terrified.

One thing that HAS to change as well is our management of our subs, against Waterford in the championship we brought on 2 unfit players, this week we only brought on 2 in total, the right changes at the right time can win/close out a match.

In regards to Loughnane, I think his remarks are more to do with his time as Galway manager rather than anything he did with Clare, a lot of Galway people still question his tactics the day he brought Galway to Cusack Park.

It crazy only used 2 subs saturday with such a strong bench. Surely fresh legs could have been introduced for last 10-15 minutes

LuckyGent88

Our u21 started very strongly and went into a commanding lead playing with a gale behind us but Waterford have really increased the pressure and we haven't been able to cope.
Curran and the two Bennetts causing us awful problems.

2 point lead just won't be enough with Waterford having the wind behind them now.

LuckyGent88

Game over. Waterford just dominant in all facets

Clareman

Throwing the hurley at a player after making a mistake for a goal, f**k off, if it was under 14 you'd take him off, here it's 1 of the senior players.

This isn't going to be pretty watching.

Clareman

I wonder what Pat Fitz's official capacity is for him to be filling out sub slips

LuckyGent88

Can we at least get a point from play in second half

Gael85

Clareman wrote: »

I wonder what Pat Fitz's official capacity is for him to be filling out sub slips

Maor Uisce?

letowski

Really bad beat tonight, although Waterford had a much more quality and balanced team.

The backs really found it tough against a star studded Waterford forward line. It was always going to be a concern, with the relative small size of our backline that they could assert themselves. We couldn't get any decent ball into Shanagher as a result.

We have had some run at U21 level, I think we have been involved in 7 in the last 8 Munster finals up to this year, but it can't be a huge surprise were not involved this year, or for a couple of years down the line. Our recent performances in the minor championship have been the weakest out of the 5 teams in the province, and we are not producing enough quality players.

The county board needs to make a change at minor level management, and try and get some sort of success. There also needs to be a long term view taken too, of developing more physical stronger players (if good enough) to try and remedy the shortage of these players we have at senior, our squad is way unbalanced. When I mean a long term view, I don't mean promoting a selector again like we did with Morrissey, we need to do something like what Limerick have with Daly, and get someone over our underage teams and get them going in one direction,so players can make the transition up through grades easier.

washman3

To be honest, no team would've faired any better than Clare tonight.
Waterford were simply unbelievable all over the pitch.