Advantage Clare for replay
Though the Munster men are still in the championship thanks to a late Jamesie O’Connor equaliser, the trip to Thurles holds no fears for Fr Bohan. Indeed he is relishing the chance to dethrone the Cats and advance to an All-Ireland semi-final against their nemesis, Waterford.
“We felt going to Dublin that we could beat Kilkenny. Now we know we can,” Fr Bohan said.
“The advantage has swung with us. We know we can win the next day.”
Fr Bohan, who managed the League-winning teams of 1977 and 1978, which were coached by Justin McCarthy, stressed that the management never doubted their players’ character or ability after their crushing first round loss to Waterford.
Pride has been a huge motivation in the intervening two months.
“We have trained since last November. It was savage,” he remarked.
“We were seriously hurt after the Waterford game. But there was a strong determination on everybody’s part that we weren’t going to let half a year’s training after us like we did.
“We made up our minds we’d come back. We had the Laois game which broke us into it and then Offaly. Coming up for the game we had no doubt that we were up to it.”
Just like Brian Cody had argued last week, Fr Bohan said that Kilkenny’s awesome display against Galway in Semple Stadium was facilitated by the Tribesmen’s lack of match practice.
“Kilkenny did win easily but Galway, most people would agree, were desperately disappointing. Physically we were up to it. We had this huge belief in ourselves and - what we didn’t do against Waterford - we scored the first three points.
“It took Kilkenny 20 minutes to score, we were up for it from the beginning and we got a good start.
“We were a small bit unlucky we didn’t get another few goals. There were two we should have got, but didn’t.”
Criticism of the team (and the management) from a few sources had given them an incentive, he acknowledged.
“That did hurt, with talk of fellows like Jamesie (O’Connor) and others being finished.
“Jamesie showed he’s not finished. He made a serious contribution, likewise Ollie Baker (introduced late in the game). Ollie is super around the young fellows, even apart from what he does on the field.
“These guys are invaluable. People who write them off are doing so at their peril.”
On the Kilkenny side, there was a ready acceptance that they were lucky not to have been beaten, even though O’Connor hit the equalising point.
“I thought we were gone at several stages. Overall, we were happy to have survived. It looked bleak when Tommy Walsh was sent off,” said selector Johnny Walsh.
“Clare putting back the extra man in the backs made it difficult for us and we didn’t counteract it in the first-half. In the second-half we did a bit more. We put in the two-man full-forward line and we brought DJ Carey out, leaving just Henry (Shefflin) inside with Jimmy Coogan. And when Tommy Walsh was sent off we had Henry inside on his own.
“It wasn’t easy. I thought we counteracted the Clare ploy when Tommy was on, but there wasn’t much you could do when they had the extra man. I’d like to think we can do better the next day. Clare hurt us on Sunday. We’re lucky to have a second chance.”
There was never any question of taking Clare for granted, he insisted.
“Their pride was hurt in the first round against Waterford. On Sunday I knew when they ran out of the tunnel that they were really up for it. They wanted to win it more than Kilkenny - it was as simple as that.
“We had a team meeting last Tuesday night. I think it was Tommy Walsh who said it was a dangerous game for us after we had played so well against Galway. The view was that ‘the hardest game is the one after you played well’. It proved to be true.
“Fair play to Clare, they could have won it. We were happy to survive, they gave us a big fright.”
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