No need to hit panic button as Clare focus on plan

Clare v Tipperary

Clare selector Michael Browne nodded in agreement when he saw the headline of Anthony Daly’s column in this newspaper on the Monday morning after their league defeat to Cork.

The dust had barely settled on the Banner’s second loss in six days when the keyboard warriors gathered en masse, forming a queue to have a cut at Davy Fitzgerald. The slings and arrows directed at the Clare management were far from pleasant. It left Daly with a sour taste in his mouth, expressing outrage that the ‘snipers’ were already lining up.

Was Browne surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes. The dust had barely settled on the Banner’s second loss in six days when the keyboard warriors gathered en masse, forming a queue to have a cut at Davy Fitzgerald. The slings and arrows directed at the Clare management were far from pleasant. It left Daly with a sour taste in his mouth, expressing outrage that the ‘snipers’ were already lining up.

Was Browne surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes.

The seven-point loss under the Páirc Uí Rinn floodlights extended their run without a competitive win to six. The league quarter-final win over Laois on March 30 stands as their last success. Tipperary, Cork (twice), Wexford and Galway have all had their hand in the ensuing 11 months.

Hardly a crisis, but a sufficient dropping of standards to fuel the vitriol of the keyboard warriors.

“There are so many experts out there. They know exactly what to do, what not to do and what is the right thing,” Browne responded this week.

“The reality is that we are the men in charge, we are the ones putting in the hard graft. The players are the ones putting the effort in on the pitch. We can’t be pandering and listening to every bit of criticism levelled at us. We have a vision, an idea of how we want to play. We are trying to put that into force and the players are trying to execute it on the pitch. Our job isn’t to be worrying about criticism. We won’t be side-tracked by what is being said on a computer screen.”

But what of the players? Have the snipers caught their attention?

“It is inevitable that some of the criticism might leak through to some of them. We are working hard as a management team to insulate them from much of that. We are trying to show them the path we want to travel, the plan we have. We are focused on achieving that plan. The players are responding to that. It is mentioned the odd time within the camp our run of games without a win. It is a fact and we can’t hide from that.”

The 2013 All-Ireland final win is an obvious reference point, but perhaps the expectancy, and the co-existing frustration at their recent run of defeats, stems from the three consecutive All-Ireland U21 final victories.

Donal Moloney, in the wake of last July’s 15-point Munster final hammering of Cork, described his U21 charges as the finest crop of hurlers to ever don the saffron and blue. “For a county like Clare these are different times, these aren’t normal types of situations or celebrations,” he said. “What we must do is make the most out of it. We need to ensure that these guys realise their full potential not just at U21 level, but at senior in the years ahead.”

Tony Kelly would echo Moloney’s sentiment following their All-Ireland final triumph at the expense of Wexford.

“There is no point winning underage if you are not going to progress onto senior. That’s the bottom line,” he asserted. “Production is how well your senior team does. Look, it is lovely winning minors and U21s, but you need to progress onto senior level and build a team that wins All-Irelands like Kilkenny have done.”

Forget about delivering All-Irelands for a second, Clare’s golden generation are struggling to produce a competitive victory; are struggling to achieve basic consistency from one weekend to the next.

“The Clare situation at the moment is a small bit of a worry in that we haven’t gathered a whole lot of momentum yet,” former boss Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin said this week.

Patience, heeded Browne. “There have been changes in personnel both to the management team and the panel, so it does take time to readjust and settle into slightly new systems.”

And as O’Loughlin pointed out, better the wake-up call arrives in late February than mid-June.

“You are better served ironing out the mistakes now,” continued Browne. “Everyone wants to play well all the time, but the reality is that when you are developing a system of play and getting players to buy into something, you can’t just press a button. It won’t happen overnight.

Processes take time. A win is important on Sunday, but unless we win our last three games we are going to be in relegation (trouble) anyway.

“We didn’t hurl for the full 70 minutes against either Galway or Cork. Defensively, we didn’t cope well in either. We hope to correct both against Tipperary. If we get what we are looking for and Tipperary still beat us, then we will have to accept that. To make the knockout stages remains our target, but if we maintain our Division 1 status and have our system of play ready for the championship, we will accept that. I won’t say we will be happy with that, but we’ll take it.”