O’Loughlin upbeat as lessons learnt
“My initial feeling is one of fierce disappointment. The thing was we came down as underdogs but we gave it everything I’m disappointed that, on another day, we might just have got over the line.
“We gave away some soft scores in the last 15 minutes and there were one or two frees, a bit dubious. That’s the way the game goes but we’ll take an awful lot of heart out of it. We introduced an awful lot of new lads this year and they did us proud today. Moral defeats aren’t much good to us really. They gave everything. We’ll go away very disappointed but I think that down the road that game will bring a lot of maturity to the team.”
O’Loughlin reckoned that the heavy breeze that swirled around Semple Stadium was an obstacle for his team in the second-half as they hurled into it, but admitted they did have the chances to ground out a victory.
“It was a game that the wind had a bearing on. We probably got more goal chances than they did. Donal Tuohy had no save to make. Darach was unlucky, he got in there in the second half. They’re the ones in a tight game you need to put away. If you’re rattling the net with those it just eases the pressure a small bit.”
There was a school of thought entering the game that a spring spent hurling in Division 2 would militate against Clare’s chances of success. O’Loughlin dismissed suggestions that their lack of exposure to a fast pace of hurling was responsible for their second-half slump.
“I don’t know, we are where we are in Clare in Division Two hurling. I can’t really comment on it. I don’t think it affected us out there now on today’s display. We’ve upped the intensity of the hurling ourselves.
“We’ve played Division One teams over the last month or so, so we knew the pace of the game. If anything we were probably fitter than Waterford were but we gave them some awful soft scores.”
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