BRIAN LOHAN PUT Clare’s storming second-half performance and landmark All-Ireland semi-final win down to a belligerent ‘enough is enough’ mentality.
The Clare manager said that after back-to-back semi-final defeats to Kilkenny, and three Munster final losses in-a-row, the Banner were ‘fed up’ of being hurling’s ‘nearly team’.
All of that hurt and determination came flooding to the surface in a blood and thunder final 20 minutes or so in which they outscored Kilkenny by 0-12 to 0-4.
They turned a six-point deficit into a two-point win and held Kilkenny scoreless from the 58th minute with Lohan praising the impact of both Clare’s bench and their experienced stars.
“Sometimes it’s just a case of enough is enough, we have to respond, we have to give our supporters something to cheer about, we can’t let them down again,” said Lohan.
“You don’t want to be the nearly guy or the nearly team all the time. So there is pressure but it’s about dealing with that. You can’t get over excited about that, you still have to make good decisions and you have to try to do what you know you’re good at and try to make good decisions on the ball. We just didn’t do that (in the first-half), probably weren’t let do that.
“But look, the game is over 70 minutes, it’s not over 35 minutes and you have an opportunity to reset and change things and we did that and our players responded and we’re delighted with our players.”
Lohan reflected on two ‘sucker punch’ moments in the third quarter that went against Clare; the Billy Ryan goal for Kilkenny in the 47th minute and the subsequent Eoin Murphy save from Aidan McCarthy in the 54th minute.
But with Shane O’Donnell, Peter Duggan and Tony Kelly digging in impressively, McCarthy excellent on the frees and David McInerney lording it, they took the lead for the first time in the 69th minute and held on.
“We needed to beat Kilkenny, we had lost two in-a-row to them,” said Lohan. “They do set the standard. Obviously Limerick are setting the standard for the last while but Kilkenny traditionally do set the standard. If you can beat Kilkenny, whether it’s league or Championship, it’s a good sign. We do see them as standard bearers and when we’re rattling them, we’re happy with that.
“We feel we’re a good team, we know that Kilkenny are a good team but I suppose we came up thinking we were better and there was that pressure, not to lose three in-a-row up here on the back of three in-a-row in Munster (finals), sometimes you get fed up with it and you say it has to stop some time.”
Lohan revealed that he gave his players a week off after the Munster final loss to Limerick. It was, he acknowledged, a gamble but he reckons it has paid off.
“It meant that if we did get over the quarter-final we were in a good shape and we had been able to reset and since that game against Wexford it seems like our year has just started,” said the former full-back.
They may very well have to face old foes Limerick all over again later this month. Limerick, who beat Clare in each of those three Munster finals, will play Cork tomorrow in the second All-Ireland semi-final.
“I don’t know,” shrugged Lohan when asked if his players would feel the pressure of playing Limerick. “Every team that gets to an All-Ireland final wants to win it. That’s part of the deal that there’s pressure to win all the time. We started out this year, having been in two semi-finals. We’ve an ambitious group. They want to win All-Irelands. They want to win Munster championships. They haven’t done that so that’s the pressure but we are ambitious. We don’t be shouting about it but it’s there at the same time.”
Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng cut a disconsolate figure after watching his team relinquish a six-point lead.
“We didn’t kick on when we should have,” said Lyng. “We tried making a few changes to get a spark back into us but the momentum was with Clare. The reality of it was that they won all the battles. That was my feeling on it. They were attacking it better, in front of the man, and when they were winning all the battles around the pitch, we struggled on the back of that. They deserved it in the second-half.
“They have excellent forwards and as the game wore on I thought we lost a bit of our shape. We tried to get it back, which is a very difficult thing to do in the middle of a game when the momentum goes against you. It’s disappointing. We did try to wrestle it back. In fairness to the players, they never stopped trying. As always, their effort was outstanding.
“But it’s a tough one because I felt we were in a really strong position and we didn’t see it out. We didn’t play well enough.”
