Sparrow lets fly at referee

THE disappointment of defeat was evident when Ger O’Loughlin fielded questions after yesterday’s Munster SHC semi-final and that was exacerbated for the Clare manager by the decisions made by referee James Owens during the game.

“I must say I was very disappointed. I might be wrong, but I think for 23 or 24 minutes we were entitled to three frees and we got none. We were well on top and I just felt we didn’t get the rub of the green from the ref. I got very frustrated with him, I thought a team like Clare need a few breaks like that. I was only looking for what we thought on the sideline were frees to Clare.

“Instead, on two occasions he gave frees out a couple of seconds later. I’d love now if fellas sat down and looked at that closely. They are only human as well, and we all get excited, but it was at a vital time for us and as far as I remember, I think they might have got scores out of two of them.

That was disappointing.”

Despite that, O’Loughlin was justifiably proud with the standard of performance his team produced against the All-Ireland champions, particularly with the blistering opening they made to the game.

“Most of you guys wouldn’t have given us that chance, that we’d be up by six points after 10 or 15 minutes. We had a tremendous start, our hurling was very crisp, our tackling was ferocious, we looked a team. Hopefully the game will bring those guys on, that they’ll improve. Obviously we’re deflated, we threw the kitchen sink at them and we learned a good bit, but the spirit overall in the camp is good.

“In saying that we left them back into it and against All-Ireland champions, Tipp, there’s never a panic button pressed. They’ll turn the screw on you if they get a chance and they got a couple of goals. But that’s something we have to learn quickly, that you can’t concede after a great start. We had a few guys carrying injuries going into the game but hopefully they will improve.”

One of the great positives that Clare accrued from the game was the sparkling performance by attacker Conor McGrath on his debut.

“We got a tremendous start with Conor McGrath getting a class goal”, admitted O’Loughlin. “That was typical Conor, he dropped the shoulder, turned and was gone. He’s around since last year with the U21’s, and he is a class forward, there is no doubt about that.

“He’s a natural forward. He is a pleasure to work with because you don’t have to tell him a whole lot and he actually plays like a lot of the Tipp forwards play. You take great heart from seeing the spirit and class the likes of Conor McGrath and Cathal McInerney, playing their first championship hurling, showed.”

The task now for Clare is to build on this performance as they prepare for a qualifier tie against Galway.

“It’s hard to know if it was a once-off today”, stated O’Loughlin. “Nobody gave us a chance, so we probably came into it with very little pressure. We’ll only know in a couple of weeks whether we’ve taken a step. We’ll play Galway and there’ll be nothing between ourselves and Galway if we turn up and play like we did today.

“July 2 will tell whether we’ve turned a corner or not, but if we have, it would be a very good year, despite not getting out of Division Two. If we can produce that again we’d be hard to beat in the qualifiers.”