Clare manager thrilled with team character

CLARE manager Mike McNamara has praised the character of his side despite losing their NHL opener to Galway (2-24 to 3-17) on Sunday.

“We’re on the road now,” said the former All-Ireland winning Banner selector.

“We were looking for character more than anything else and I think we found it. I would be extremely happy with the manner of the performance and the character of the players.

“We have to accept that it’s going to take a while to get a team game going. Individual performances all over the field were quite good but we have to accept, with Clare going forward, that it’s going to take a while to get the team game going, to play as a team, particularly at this stage when we’ve no ball work done.”

Clare had five league debutantes against Galway: corner-back Tadhg Keogh and forwards David Barrett, Cathal Lafferty, Mark Flaherty and Ger Arthur, along with two others — Conor McMahon, brother of Diarmuid, and Darragh Clancy — who were making their first starts in the league.

Five of those seven didn’t finish the game for various reasons — Barrett lasted just three minutes before picking up a straight red for striking Ger Mahon with the hurley.

Lafferty was next to go after struggling to make an impact at centre-forward, the impressive McMahon was forced off through injury early in the second half, while Arthur and Keogh were substituted late in the game.

It was a satisfactory experiment, reckoned McNamara.

“I’m happy with them all. We spoke during the week of how if they all came through unscathed it would be some kind of small miracle, but if you put six or seven debutantes in the league and five of them come through unscathed then you have a great day’s work done.

“Towards the end of the game scores probably went a-begging but when you finish with 3-17, and four forwards hadn’t played in the county jersey before, then you can take a lot of positives from that.

“Everyone in Clare knows it’s going to take a while to generate team play, team spirit, indeed a team itself, but we’re up and running, we’re on the road, and I think we can only get better every day.

“The performance will increase, the tempo will increase, and the players, individually and collectively, will improve their performances.”

Glass half full in Clare then; glass more than half full in Galway, reckons their boss Ger Loughnane.

He said: “It was a good start, but not a good finish. It was good to get the two points at home but when you finish the game without your full-back and centre-back you’re going be in trouble (Tony Óg Regan and John Lee sent off for Galway on second

yellow-card offences) — and we gave away a lot of scores at the end — I’m not too happy with that. Clare’s stamina seemed to be better but the main thing for us is that our hurling was so good for 40 minutes. If you’re hurling well for 40 minutes at this time of the year then you’re happy enough. There’s nothing won at this time of the year, we’re aiming for further down the line, but the way we contested for the ball, the quality of many of the scores that we got, you’d have to be happy with that.”