Clare can’t be as naïve again

Call it old fashioned honour, naïveté or innocence but the main reason Clare failed to put up a battle in the Munster final earlier this month was their insistence on playing their own game.

Rather than setting up a system to minimise the damage done by the strong running of the Cork midfield and half-forward line, Clare went man to man from the start. Nobody does that anymore and after their showing against Cork, Clare are unlikely to do so this evening.

Clare will lose a shootout against this Kerry team but if they can create the conditions for a battle, anything can happen. They surely recognise that was their greatest failing against Cork. Never at any stage did they suffocate the space in front of Paul Kerrigan, Aidan Walsh or Ciarán Sheehan. The least we can expect this evening from them is some resilience and a defiance that wasn’t there the last time out in the Gaelic Grounds.