Clinical Treaty off to a flier

THE Championship wasn’t confined to Killarney yesterday.

Clare and Limerick served up a game of real bite and brio – in the first half, anyway – in Ennis yesterday, with Limerick taking the victory by four points.

Limerick offered the 4,386 spectators in Cusack Park the very definition of a flying start: Stephen Lucey and Jim O’Donovan points preceded a Stephen Lavin goal for the Shannonsiders.

A Jason Stokes-Ger Collins combination broke down, but Lavin steamed through to rescue the situation and slotted the ball home coolly past Dermot O’Brien.

When Ian Ryan pointed a free Limerick were six up with a bare five minutes on the clock.

“Sometimes those things can militate against a team,” said Limerick boss Mickey Ned O’Sullivan: “They can give the team on the receiving end an injection, and that’s what happened. Clare came back and they put it up to us.”

Credit Clare, they did. Following a David Tubridy pointed free, the referee correctly gave a throw-in deep in the Limerick half when their midfielder John Galvin retaliated, having won a free out. Tubridy won possession and bore down on goal, and though his handpass looked just too far ahead of Gary Brennan, the Clare midfielder managed to bundle the ball over the line: game on.

The sides exchanged the lead from then until half-time in an open game which saw plenty of entertaining football. Limerick operated with a two-man full-forward line of Jason Stokes and Ger Collins, with Clare keeping Tubridy and Michael O’Shea isolated at the other end.

Accordingly, there was plenty of space whenever a player broke out of the traffic in the middle third of the field: Clare’s Timmy Ryan came close to a goal when he soloed through, and Gordon Kelly had a fine point when he made ground.

At the other end Ger Collins won a lot of ball but lacked support, while Jason Stokes looked to involve players outside him rather than going for his own score.

David Tubridy tied the scores with a late first-half free, 1-7 apiece, and Clare had the breeze in the second half. However, Limerick sparkled again early on, with Collins (two) and Ryan hitting points before Tubridy replied for Clare in the 43rd minute.

That was one of only two scores that Clare managed in the second half, while Limerick drove on. They had introduced Eoin Hogan at half-time, and his pace was a potent addition to their attack.

The men in green kept Clare at bay and the Banner forwards were reduced to trying shots that weren’t always the best option, as their captain David Russell conceded afterwards: “It was a disappointing result, the way it ended up.

“Limerick just took their scores while we were trying to score from difficult angles.”

Clare had to wait until injury time for Michael O’Shea to add their second point, and by that stage Limerick had throttled the life out of the game.

Mickey Ned O’Sullivan has some work to do – his side lost their concentration totally when Clare surged at them in the first half and left some alarming gaps at the back which Cork or Kerry would likely punish. In addition, Clare enjoyed parity at midfield, with Timmy Ryan and David Russell doing shifts there at various times in the game; O’Sullivan will want more from his combination of John Galvin and Jim O’Donovan in the decider.

“The win was based on graft and hard work,” said O’Sullivan. “We’re in the final now, and we’re the only team in the final.”

Scorers for Clare: D. Tubridy 0-4 (f’s); G. Brennan 1-0; G. Quinlan 0-2; E. Coughlan, Gordon Kelly and M. O’Shea 0-1 each.

Scorers for Limerick: I. Ryan 0-6 (0-3 f’s); G. Collins 0-3 (0-2 fs), S. Lavin 1-0; S. Buckley, J. O’Donovan, S. Lucey, E. Hogan 0-1 each.

CLARE: D. O’Brien, L. Healy, C. Whelan, D. Ryan, G. Kelly, K. Dilleen, G. Kelly, G. Quinlan, G. Brennan, E. Coughlan, D. Russell (c), P. Reidy, M. O’Shea, T. Ryan, D. Tubridy.

Subs: M. McMahon for D. Ryan, 26; S. Collins for Coughlan, 49; C. O’Connor or Reidy and G. Lynch for Ryan, both 63; N. Considine for Healy, 70. .

LIMERICK: S. Kiely, J. McCarthy, S. Gallagher, M. O’Riordan, S. Lavin, S. Lucey, P. Ranahan, J. O’Donovan, J. Galvin, P. Browne, I. Ryan, S. Buckley (c), C. Joyce-Power, J. Stokes, G. Collins.

Subs: E. Hogan for Joyce-Power HT; K. O’Callaghan for Stokes, 54; D. Phelan for Buckley (blood) 59-61; T. Cahill for O’Donovan, 72.

Referee: P. McGovern (Galway)