Mulqueen says Banner putting the building blocks in place

Last Saturday Dublin and Limerick were fighting it out for a place in the Allianz HL Division 1A next year, this Sunday it’s the turn of Clare and Cork to avoid the dreaded drop.

While there is a massive potential loss of revenue involved in demotion there’s a lot more also at stake, as outlined by Clare selector Louis Mulqueen.

“While we find ourselves in this unfortunate position now, we had some great games in the league this year,” he said.

“We have a very, very young team who had five fiercely competitive games, which is what a young team needs for development. For us, having been promoted last year it was a continuation of the learning process.

“I’m sure it’s been the same for Cork. They too are building, but whichever one of us loses this, not having those games next year will be a major setback. There are savage economic consequences but you are also interrupting the progression of the team on the field. If this format is retained either Clare or Cork will find themselves out of the mix in the top division and that’s not good for either county.

“I think there’s room for more teams in the top division. You saw this year, we had some great games in Division 1A but you could afford to increase the numbers and still have that competition.”

One of the major complaints from most managers in all the six-team divisions is that with only five games, this format doesn’t allow for experimentation. This was also the case in Clare.

“That’s true. Our first priority this year was to try to retain our status so every game was almost a championship game, backs to the wall. You’d like to try out more players, give them expand your panel but we were trying to stay up, couldn’t experiment.

“More teams in the top division would mean more games and more opportunities to look at a player.”

Along with every other team in Division 1A Clare were in the mix for a semi-final place right up to the final round but fell heavily to a rejuvenated Tipperary. Having beaten the same opposition in the Waterford Crystal final this was undoubtedly a setback and almost immediately the knives were out, the critics of the new game Clare are trying to develop under Davy Fitzgerald and his progressive management team enjoying a field day.

Short memories they have, very short memories, as in the previous four games Clare had beaten both Galway and Cork, had come within a whisker of Waterford and the mighty Kilkenny, one-point defeats in both.

Patience, pleads Louis. The Kilkenny machine wasn’t built overnight.

“The first challenge Davy faced as manager was to make Clare competitive again with the top teams and I think he has done that. Alright, we were well beaten by Tipperary in the final game but we’re still learning and it takes time to catch up with the likes of Kilkenny and Tipperary — that takes work, it takes patience.

We’ve blended in several players from the minor panel of last year, we have a serious number of U21s. It’s a very talented young panel but they’re going to need time and the Clare supporters need to understand that. These lads will give it everything they’ve got but they need encouragement, not criticism. If the supporters get in behind them it will really lift them, bring them along.”

Come along on and support the team, because they’re going to need it. “You’ve got a must-win game, two young, skilful sides, playing very attractive hurling, one side for the drop.

It’s a huge game, a real championship edge I’d say, two teams giving it everything to win to ensure they continue to play at the highest level in the league next year.”