Dublin draw relegates Clare

Dublin 0-15 Clare 0-15

Dublin manager Anthony Daly watched his native county Clare be relegated from Allianz NHL Division 1 as a late point from team captain Stephen Hiney rescued a draw for the Dubs at Parnell Park.

Having suffered five straight league defeats, Clare picked up their first point of the campaign but it was not enough to avoid the drop to the second tier.

Alan McCrabbe was Dublin's top scorer in the opening half. He struck seven points but the Banner men, who enjoyed a purple patch midway through to go 0-7 to 0-4 clear.

Shane Durkin had opened the scoring for the Dubs but he was the only other scorer bar McCrabbe as Daly's men failed to match their performances of recent weeks.

Clare strung together five points without reply - debutant Conor McNamara, Caimin Morey, Patrick Donnellan, Jonathan Clancy and substitute Alan Markman all found their range - to pull into a three-point lead.

Free-taker McCrabbe kept his side in contention and they were only 0-10 to 0-8 in arrears at the break.

Although McCrabbe and Durkin got back on the scoresheet just after the restart, a Niall Gilligan double put four points between the sides.

But Clare really needed a goal to assert themselves and the Dubs remained dangerous as scores from David O'Callaghan, McCrabbe and midfielder John McCaffrey made it 0-14 to 0-13.

Both sides did manage to create goal-scoring opportunities. Dublin goalkeeper Gary Maguire denied the visitors on two occasions, while Clare stopper Patrick Kelly earned his corn by preventing O'Callaghan from registering a major.

A subsequent O'Callaghan point, on 68 minutes, squared up the game and while Donnellan raised hopes of an away win with a neat score, Hiney cracked a lovely point over in injury-time to produce the stalemate.