Clare GAA discussion thread

letowski

Hurling team for Saturday:

Touhy
Morey mcinerney brown 
O Connor cleary Malone 
Galvin golden 
Duggan Kelly Mccarthy 
Cooney shanagher podge

Ok there's alot going on with this selection. First off this is one of the most blatant attempts I have seen of a management team keeping its cards close to its chest. Hayes and Ian Galvin are not even on the panel. I don't expect Clare to be going all out to win this one, which is a little annoying as there is no clear favourite for the league title, its there to be won.

With regards to the selection, my favourite part is the full forward line, we badly need Shanagher to get some gametime under his belt, he will play an important part of our summer no doubt. I also like the resting of Ryan for Aidan McCarthy. I actually think McCarthy could be the most suitable player in the next few years to play that grafter type wing forward role Diamuid Ryan has being playing well this spring. I will be looking forward to see how he gets on in it, long term it could allow Ryan play in his strongest position in the half back line.

Dont love the back line selections so much, I would have tried Seadna at wing back and given O'Brien a start he earned a fortnight ago. Seadna not a corner obviously but it not likely Waterford will play 3 inside so he will probably fjnd himself out the field. McInerney to wing back looks a non runner too, but then again, if the management want to hold their card close they wouldnt play him there.

Overall hoping for a good result but its no big deal if we lose anyway. Duggan needs to find some better form.

Sterling Archer

Football against Meath refixed for tomorrow Sunday at 2 pm in the park

Donald Trumped

Gutless stuff from the Clare senior hurlers in Walsh Park today. If today has anything to go by, the Banner men will have a very short summer and early holidays by the end of June.

4Ad

O Connor should of got red for that dig...

Donald Trumped

Donald Trumped wrote: »

Gutless stuff from the Clare senior hurlers in Walsh Park today. If today has anything to go by, the Banner men will have a very short summer and early holidays by the end of June.

Serious lack of workrate, lack of discipline and poor use of the ball, are just some of things that are so infuriating today, from a Clare point of view. Galvin, Morey, Shanagher, Podge just some of the players that are well below their best form. 4 losses in the Munster Championship a real possibility, for a Clare team that look a distant shadow of their 2013 best.

Donald Trumped

The ramifications of this humiliating defeat, against a very physically strong and very skillful Waterford team are huge. The Clare and national media and ex-players will give it loads to them. The body language was shocking. No leadership. Two red cards. 31 points conceded. I finish with this. Is this current Clare team finished? Do they look burned out? Or is there a malaise in the camp? What do other posters think? A lot of soul-searching will be needed in the next 8 weeks, that is for sure.

windy shepard henderson

Donald Trumped wrote: »

The ramifications of this humiliating defeat, against a very physically strong and very skillful Waterford team are huge. The Clare and national media and ex-players will give it loads to them. The body language was shocking. No leadership. Two red cards. 31 points conceded. I finish with this. Is this current Clare team finished? Do they look burned out? Or is there a malaise in the camp? What do other posters think? A lot of soul-searching will be needed in the next 8 weeks, that is for sure.

i wouldnt panic really , it was a strange game , very low attendance for a league 1/4 final had the atmosphere of a club game , we were very under strength today especially in the forwards , while most of the first half seemed to be an exercise of working on our defensive system

gerry o connor said a few weeks back that they were only beginning to start work on there defensive structure i was hoping he was lying but it wasnt , ...
i was fairly close to the sideline and with the small crowd at that side of the field you could clearly hear the instructions from coach Gavin Keary

the system of each man in the full back line picking up a man then instructing a player in the half back line to pick up some one who in turn is supposed to pass on the same info to the midfielders and wing forwards to watch for runners ect was confusing for the players
on many occasions players were losing there own men while passing on instructions to teammates in front of them hence so many easy scores coughed up what also confused the players was some were given direct instructions to pick up particular players , cathal malone was given strict instructions to pick up shane bennett , who again did an excellent job keeping his man scoreless from play again
for all the world we resembled a soccer team defending a corner kick and not knowing should we be man to man or zonal , waterford did not stick to there positions so it made man marking difficult , not taking anything away from waterfords excellent performance especially in the second half where they notched up 20 points in 35 minutes but we seemed more interested in getting this defensive game plan in place then going all out like waterford did

if there was a worry for the championship game in 8 weeks time , we worked heavily on our running game in the warm up before the game and got smothered in the middle 3rd when trying to implement the same game plan employed against limerick 2 weeks ago which left us with plan B and just hit long balls into an inexperienced gary cooney and a rusty aaron shanagher , at least we will have conlon and o'donnell back in 8 weeks time for that tactic to work better

windy shepard henderson

Shane_ef wrote: »

Football against Meath refixed for tomorrow Sunday at 2 pm in the park

what of the chances of it going ahead , it has made serious rain again today , plus the chief grounds man for the park was taken our frees in walsh park today , i hope it goes ahead for the meath players and supporters that have been stranded in the county waiting for the game to go ahead but i cant see it , we are promised another bad night tonight rain wise

Figerty

windy shepard henderson wrote: »

i wouldnt panic really , it was a strange game , very low attendance for a league 1/4 final had the atmosphere of a club game , we were very under strength today especially in the forwards , while most of the first half seemed to be an exercise of working on our defensive system

gerry o connor said a few weeks back that they were only beginning to start work on there defensive structure i was hoping he was lying but it wasnt , ...
i was fairly close to the sideline and with the small crowd at that side of the field you could clearly hear the instructions from coach Gavin Keary

the system of each man in the full back line picking up a man then instructing a player in the half back line to pick up some one who in turn is supposed to pass on the same info to the midfielders and wing forwards to watch for runners ect was confusing for the players
on many occasions players were losing there own men while passing on instructions to teammates in front of them hence so many easy scores coughed up what also confused the players was some were given direct instructions to pick up particular players , cathal malone was given strict instructions to pick up shane bennett , who again did an excellent job keeping his man scoreless from play again
for all the world we resembled a soccer team defending a corner kick and not knowing should we be man to man or zonal , waterford did not stick to there positions so it made man marking difficult , not taking anything away from waterfords excellent performance especially in the second half where they notched up 20 points in 35 minutes but we seemed more interested in getting this defensive game plan in place then going all out like waterford did

if there was a worry for the championship game in 8 weeks time , we worked heavily on our running game in the warm up before the game and got smothered in the middle 3rd when trying to implement the same game plan employed against limerick 2 weeks ago which left us with plan B and just hit long balls into an inexperienced gary cooney and a rusty aaron shanagher , at least we will have conlon and o'donnell back in 8 weeks time for that tactic to work better

How far did Podge wander from Corner forward... I think the shadows were boxing today.

BloodyBill

With O Donnell and Conlon back the forwards will be fine. It's the backs that are atrocious. 14 points scored against Clare again from frees. This management team are all corporate baloney and no action.

windy shepard henderson

Figerty wrote: »

How far did Podge wander from Corner forward... I think the shadows were boxing today.

podge was out the field all day but very much lost in the middle 3rd as Waterford muscled us out of it there , he rarely was seen inside at any stage , he offered very little in either on the 40 or inside , it seemed callum lyons was picking him up for most of the game and did a fairly good job , a player i haven't seen much of before

windy shepard henderson

BloodyBill wrote: »

With O Donnell and Conlon back the forwards will be fine. It's the backs that are atrocious. 14 points scored against Clare again from frees. This management team are all corporate baloney and no action.

yeah i dont get it at this stage either , its one thing to play on the edge but backs need to know how to play a referee too , browne is gone beyond a joke at this stage , david mc for all our criticism had a fine game today though probably the only positive

Sterling Archer

Any word on U21 refixtures?

Donald Trumped

windy shepard henderson wrote: »

i wouldnt panic really , it was a strange game , very low attendance for a league 1/4 final had the atmosphere of a club game , we were very under strength today especially in the forwards , while most of the first half seemed to be an exercise of working on our defensive system

gerry o connor said a few weeks back that they were only beginning to start work on there defensive structure i was hoping he was lying but it wasnt , ...
i was fairly close to the sideline and with the small crowd at that side of the field you could clearly hear the instructions from coach Gavin Keary

the system of each man in the full back line picking up a man then instructing a player in the half back line to pick up some one who in turn is supposed to pass on the same info to the midfielders and wing forwards to watch for runners ect was confusing for the players
on many occasions players were losing there own men while passing on instructions to teammates in front of them hence so many easy scores coughed up what also confused the players was some were given direct instructions to pick up particular players , cathal malone was given strict instructions to pick up shane bennett , who again did an excellent job keeping his man scoreless from play again
for all the world we resembled a soccer team defending a corner kick and not knowing should we be man to man or zonal , waterford did not stick to there positions so it made man marking difficult , not taking anything away from waterfords excellent performance especially in the second half where they notched up 20 points in 35 minutes but we seemed more interested in getting this defensive game plan in place then going all out like waterford did

if there was a worry for the championship game in 8 weeks time , we worked heavily on our running game in the warm up before the game and got smothered in the middle 3rd when trying to implement the same game plan employed against limerick 2 weeks ago which left us with plan B and just hit long balls into an inexperienced gary cooney and a rusty aaron shanagher , at least we will have conlon and o'donnell back in 8 weeks time for that tactic to work better

Windy I always love your opinions, but personally I would be in panic mode. Yet again we were beaten up in the physicality stakes which is something not new with this Clare team.

Where were Podge Collins who has had a shocking 2019 so far, likewise for David McInerney, Pat O'Connor and co, our so-called leaders in the team in the 2nd half? The loss of Paul Kinnerk has been massive. Our tackling and our workrate, are light years behind than what it was in 2013.

I really hope that this woeful performance was down to doing heavy-training or training a few hours pre-game because by the end of the game, Clare looked disinterested and dead in their feet by the time the ref blew the full time whistle.

I feel that we have a very poor S&C coach in Kelvin Harrold. He is meant to be full-time S&C coach for all Clare underage hurling teams, aswell as being part of the senior hurling set-up. Look at the lack of size, of all our recent underage teams and you will see that he is not doing the job, he is meant to be doing.

Compare to Galway where the size and the conditioning of the tribesmen is simply extraordinary. Joe Canning is in the best shape of his life from what I saw today v Wexford. He covered every blade of the field in Salthill. This is the same S&C coach (Lukasz Kirszenstein is his name) that even Munster rugby wanted to snap up. He was also the S&C coach for Tipp in their run to All-Ireland glory in 2016.

So what do we need to improve. Our tackling. Our workrate. Better use and impact of the subs bench. Not putting enough scores when we have the advantage of the elements, if the weather is ugly. Our discipline is clearly a massive worry, but a better return of some of our marquee players is in my opinion the most concerning ahead of championship. A disappointing day at the office that is for sure.

Meanwhile I cannot see Clare and Meath playing tomorrow in Ennis. I have never seen the River Fergus this high in Clare's county town, since the conclusion of works to alleviate flooding in the town and definitely not in this time of year. More rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Even the Paddy's day parade might be in doubt too!

With results going Clare's way today, the footballers have a huge chance to go a long way to sealing their Division 2 status against a team they have had an abysmal record to say the least. Best of luck to them.

Clareman

By my reckoning the game against Meath doesn't make a difference to the footballers. If the win they'll be on 5 points going into the last game against Tipp, if Tipp beat us then they'll have 5 points but will be ahead of us based on the the head to head, if they lose they'll be on 3 points going into the last game and will need to beat Tipp to stay ahead of them.

Boots234

Clareman wrote:

By my reckoning the game against Meath doesn't make a difference to the footballers. If the win they'll be on 5 points going into the last game against Tipp, if Tipp beat us then they'll have 5 points but will be ahead of us based on the the head to head, if they lose they'll be on 3 points going into the last game and will need to beat Tipp to stay ahead of them.

If we beat Meath we would be on 5 points which means we could afford to lose to Tipp next Sunday as long as Cork beat Armagh. We would all be on 5 points so it would come down to scoring difference, in which case we currently have the best record. We would need to avoid a hammering from Tipp though. If Cork lose to Armagh and Tipp beat us we would be relegated on head to head.

If we were to lose narrowly to Meath we could potentially stay up by drawing with Tipp and Cork losing to Armagh with scoring difference being in our favour. There are a few different permutations but basically it all comes down to the Tipp game next Sunday like you said, we just need to avoid a hammering from Meath so that our scoring difference is the best in case it comes to that.

keeponhurling

Some random thoughts on the hurling:

League or not it was atrocious.

The ref certainly didn’t help us, but we gave away some awful stupid frees. Again.
It’s surely a percentages game. The likes of Horgan, Canning, Mahoney etc will score 90%+, if you just pressure the man the conversion rate will be less.

No score from play in the second half, we barely even hit a wide from play. I know Conlon and O'Donnell will come back, and Kelly had an off day, but nobody stepped up. (How sharp will SOD be?)

POC could be in bother, looked like he struck Bennett twice with the hurley (what the F was he thinking ?)

Duggan’s two yellows don't mean a suspension right ?

Cleary’s red was harmless enough, ive seen similar being rescinded (Patrick Horgan?). We need Cleary for the championship. Again, I don’t think the ref did us any favors.

It looked like Colm Galvin picked up an injury to shoulder or arm, that is not good news (if serious). Today things got worse after he went off.

I do wonder is Jack Browne a bit of a liability, seriously needs to work in his tackling, but yet he’s been on the county team for what, 3+ years ?

What a miss at end of 1st half by Cooney !

windy shepard henderson

keeponhurling wrote: »

Some random thoughts on the hurling:

League or not it was atrocious.

The ref certainly didn’t help us, but we gave away some awful stupid frees. Again.
It’s surely a percentages game. The likes of Horgan, Canning, Mahoney etc will score 90%+, if you just pressure the man the conversion rate will be less.

No score from play in the second half, we barely even hit a wide from play. I know Conlon and O'Donnell will come back, and Kelly had an off day, but nobody stepped up. (How sharp will SOD be?)

POC could be in bother, looked like he struck Bennett twice with the hurley (what the F was he thinking ?)

Duggan’s two yellows don't mean a suspension right ?

Cleary’s red was harmless enough, ive seen similar being rescinded (Patrick Horgan?). We need Cleary for the championship. Again, I don’t think the ref did us any favors.

It looked like Colm Galvin picked up an injury to shoulder or arm, that is not good news (if serious). Today things got worse after he went off.

I do wonder is Jack Browne a bit of a liability, seriously needs to work in his tackling, but yet he’s been on the county team for what, 3+ years ?

What a miss at end of 1st half by Cooney !

in defense of the forwards in the second half there was no golden or galvin in midfield so the ball won in the middle 3rd was limited although ryan taylor did his best to change that but it was against a gale force wind , cooney had a good game for a lad starting his 2nd competitive game he will come good in a few years time his miss was poor but it wouldnt have made a massive difference i dont think

clearys red was as soft as ****e but under the new laws it wont be over turned , there were two cameras right beside him and i doubt it will improve his case , only hope is they see his eyes were on the ball and he was trying to catch it with his right hand and lost control of his hurl

not sure about the injury to galvin i didnt see him going off , but as regards browne , unless management have instructed him to be as aggressive as he is , they really should be on him by now , again today i never saw that gavin keary say anything to him about his discipline on the sideline even though he picked up an early yellow card

how sharp will o'donnell be , what i hear he has been training with the athletic squad outside so fitness should not be a worry but sharpness could be , he will be home in less then 3 weeks though i have been told so plenty of time

windy shepard henderson

Clareman wrote: »

By my reckoning the game against Meath doesn't make a difference to the footballers. If the win they'll be on 5 points going into the last game against Tipp, if Tipp beat us then they'll have 5 points but will be ahead of us based on the the head to head, if they lose they'll be on 3 points going into the last game and will need to beat Tipp to stay ahead of them.

yeah we could put out the clare masters team with seamus clancy and beno for the meath game it really wont matter unless we win in thurles now

windy shepard henderson

keeponhurling wrote: »

Some random thoughts on the hurling:



POC could be in bother, looked like he struck Bennett twice with the hurley (what the F was he thinking ?)

Duggan’s two yellows don't mean a suspension right ?
?

duggen is not banned thankfully but patch could be in trouble alright if the ccc get a tape although i think david fitz has him beaten for his position for the championship , o'connor was poor today

letowski

An absolute shocker of a performance from Clare. I don't think I have ever seen a Clare team that gave up as bad as yesterday. We have had our fair share of beating down through the years, but at least the guys tried their best. There was zero effort or workrate in the second half from Clare which to be frank, was disgraceful when you had people making the long drive down to supporter them.

I'm only going to single out one player for criticism, I know I shouldn't, they were all bad, but Pat O'Connor has got to get his act together as captain of the team. He is in horrendous form, but his leadership is questionable. The strike he pulled on the Waterford player in the second half was disgraceful and he should have been put off. We were devoid of leadership today, and that falls too on the likes of McInerney, Podge, Kelly, etc but the team as a whole has to look themselves in the mirror. Our work rate from last year is polar opposite.

I said in an earlier post that it would be beneficial to us to get a chance to play Waterford in the league before the first round of the championship. I stand by that, there is alot of things that stand out about the Waterford team and Walsh Park. With regards to their team, they are a proper classy outfit with great skickwork. Their workrate and running both on and off the ball is excellent and they really pulled our backline all over the place by combining the skickwork with their pace. Clare the next have really up in the middle third the next day or they will be in trouble again. Another big problem were going to have to surmount is this Walsh Park surface. I know there was torrential rain this weekend but if the surface is soft again next May were going to have big trouble getting quick ball for Conlon and O'Donnell to run onto. Shanagher and Cooney were well beaten inside but we all know its desperate hard to run onto a ball to only takes one bounce and its stuck in the surface. Our game is all about dropping back out the field and leaving space inside for Conlon and SOD, and I actually thought we were able to do that in the first half. Waterford try to play good ball inside too, but alot of their attack is predicated on keeping the ball off the surface with movement and skickwork, which negates the poor surface. Clare the next day will either have to bomb balls in on top of Conlon or low trajectory balls, but we will be hoping for dry days in the lead up to the game.

Overall though I've no confidence we can win there come championship and Waterford should be rightly favourites to win. We have so much problem to address. Our stickwork and handling is incredibly messy while somehow our discipline is getting even worse. The management have a massive issue now with who to play at 6. I want McInerney pulled out of full back but I know they wont do that. I'd imagine it will be O'Connor who will fill in, with Malone and Fitz either side. We just don't have a half back line that can impose themselves in the game and we will continue to see this trend of us disappearing for large portions (or whole halves) of games. We have a poor back line in the whole, there is no other way around it.

Donald Trumped

Most disappointing second half performance by Clare today in the football. Having trailed by one, with a gale at their backs, Clare could only muster 3 points in the second half, to lose by 5. The big plus was our defensive structure was excellent for the most part. Our workrate was good too. However when the Meath men got a run on us in the 2nd 35 mins, we simply had no answer. For Clare I felt the Yank was Clare's man of the match by a mile. He won some huge ball in the middle of the field and took his goal exceptionally well.

I was most disappointed with our forward play though. Time after time we coughed up silly turnovers. We simply have no one to break from the tackle and along with our stubborn refusal to kick more ball and be more direct, was criminal with the elements in our backs. Above all else we simply don't have the forwards, to do the basics and that is put the ball over the bar.

Gary Brennan had a most poor game along with O'Connor in midfield. While Eoin Cleary and David Tubridy did their best work without the ball than on it. So Tipp next week in a winner takes all encounter in Semple Stadium. Win or bust, Clare will have to find a plan to curtail Quinlivan, Sweeney and co. They both a similar possession based, running game, so it will be fascinating to see who will prevail. Lets hope it will be the Banner men celebrating come Sunday evening.

Boots234

We were a point down in the second half when Meath had a midfielder black carded, in those 10 minutes we kicked 3 wides and they scored a goal to lead by 4 when he returned to the game. We made no use of our man advantage during that period

Clareman

It's a winner take all match next weekend, whoever is the second best team in Munster will stay up whoever isn't will go down, we are good enough to stay up but we've a great habit of shooting ourselves in the foot.

windy shepard henderson

didnt make the game today , heard the second half performance was awful big game now next week in thurles , i reckon its a more important game then any championship game we will play later on in the year , dont think clare have beaten tipp since the early 90s though

LuckyGent88

Only got to see the score in the hurling on Sunday morning. What an awful Saturday of sport results!!!

That looks like an awful hiding from Waterford. How do you concede 31 points ffs. Obviously it’s only the league and we were missing a few players but it doesn’t bode well for the championship.
We didn’t sort out anything during the league.

Can’t believe they left McInerney in at full back for all the games. To me he should be on the half back line and possibly move cleary back to FB. Need to start getting some defensive shape about us before we head to Walsh Park again.

With the way things look, the limerick game could be a dead rubber in the championship and that might be the only match I can get back to Ireland for.

letowski

You know, I sometimes think of this, but Colin Ryan leaving the Clare panel 2 years ago was a bigger blow than we realised. He is still only 30.

Even if he is not a starter, his value alone as a leader, good head in possession, free taking, impact as a sub, etc. would be huge for this side. In so may games, where we drift out and when Duggan starts missing some frees, having a player like Colin Ryan to come in to settle things down would have been great. And you could argue he could be a starter on the wing with Diarmuid Ryan in the backs, if he kept going.

I think the lack of veteran leadership has hurt this teams development in the last 6 years. Its a pity we were so poor in years '09-'12, the only players to emerge from that timeframe were Donnellan, Buglar, Bruiser and Colin Ryan. I think Clancy was part of the 2013 panel. But after that, alot of decent players like Tony Griffin, Diarmuid McMahon, Gerry Quinn, Ger O'Grady, Tony Carmody all retired at around 30 years of age or younger. Young players on teams like Waterford and Limerick have benefitted from having a couple of older lads in the squad.

Clareman

The problems Clare had 2 years ago were (in no particular order)

Lack of reliable freetaker. Suspect defence. Lack of centre back. Lack of ball winning forwards. Lack of leaders on the pitch Poor puck out strategy.

This year going into the championship we have a lot of the same issues, I would say frees are our biggest problem now, both the conceeding of "silly" frees and the lack of a reliable free taker. We need a serious changing of our tackling to stop giving away of so many frees, but I think that we are willing to concede "soft" frees out the field to stop risking goal chances inside, we have lost most of our games because of frees.


Tipp - against 0-7, for 1-5, we had 3 different free takers.
Kilkenny - against 1-11, for 0-5, 2 free takers
Cork - 0-15 against, 0-3 for
Wexford - 0-6 against, 1-6 for
Limerick - 0-8 against, 0-6 for

In 5 games we gave away 1-47 and got 2-25, that's a difference of 19 points and we had a -12 points difference in the league and that doesn't include a number of easily scorable frees missed during games. For me, Deasy is the best free taker in the county by far but he's not a guaranteed starter, Duggan is going to miss a couple of frees every game and even if he doesn't you never have confidence in his free taking, Kelly has been tried a couple of times and didn't work out either. As with our Full and Centre Back positions, management has made a decision and they are going to stick to it, saying that, looking at the guaranteed starters (which your free taker has to be) none of them are natural free takers.

windy shepard henderson

ment to put up these yesterday , round up of the u21 championship over the weekend along with next weeks fixtures , big derby game in clarecastle , i wold expect the parish to prevail in the other game , in the B championship i will give the nod to newmarket and the mills to edge out the neighbors down in clonlara Saturday evening

windy shepard henderson

5 clare cup games took place in division 1A on monday only 3 took place in 1B so no point printing the table yet , feakle took advantage of an under strength cratloe to go top , wins on the road also for clooney , clonlara and kilmaley ,

inagh the only home team to win in the division , in davy fitzs first game in charge of a clare side in 3 years , the bridge got of to a terrible start trailing by 0-13 to 0-5 at half time , an early second half david fitzgearld penalty sealed the deal but the bridge did hurl well for the last 20 minutes despite missing a penalty of there own

got sent on these highlights today ,will probably get killed for putting threm up here :eek:

Division 1B