GAA talking points: Clare blow the roof off their goalscoring charts
Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group A, Chadwick’s Wexford Park, Wexford 26/2/2023
When Peter Duggan scored Clare’s first goal in the third minute in Wexford Park yesterday, and Conor McDonald responded with a Wexford green flag three minutes later, the die was cast. Goals were in the air, with Clare nailing six of the seven green flags raised.
Despite goalscoring numbers continually decreasing, seven-goal matches are not exactly a rarity in the league between top-ten sides – Cork and Galway accumulated seven goals in their Round 2 meeting in Pearse Stadium. Yet it is extremely uncommon for one team to bag six against another top-nine side.
For Clare, all sorts of numbers went through the roof around goalscoring. The esteemed and brilliant GAA statistician Leo McGough was able to reveal some of the detail behind the data shortly after Sunday’s rout.
It was just Clare’s 25th time to score six goals or more against one of the top teams since the first time they managed that feat in the 1929-’30 season, against Galway. If you remove Offaly and Laois from that equation, Clare have hit six goals or more against top teams on just 19 occasions from over 500 fixtures.
Clare did score seven goals against Laois in the 2004 qualifiers. Otherwise, McGough’s numbers show how you have to go all the way back to June 14 1953 to recall the seismic digits they clocked yesterday - Clare blitzed Limerick in Ennis in that 1953 Munster championship by 10-8 to 1-1. That was the day Jimmy Smyth recorded his legendary individual tally of 6-4.
Prior to Sunday, Clare’s biggest goalscoring fest against a top side in the league came against Galway in October 1968 when they walloped their neighbours in Cusack Park on a scoreline of 7-12 to 3-6. The green flags that afternoon came courtesy of a hat-trick from Tom Ryan, a brace from Paddy McNamara, along with a goal each from Noel Pyne and Michael Arthur.
Ignatius Gavin was the Galway goalkeeper that day. James Lawlor was the unfortunate Wexford ‘keeper yesterday. It was a day to forget for Lawlor. For Clare, it was a day to remember for green flags.
On a bright and sunny day in March 2018, it was almost apt that the Hozier song ‘From Eden’ boomed out over the Pearse Stadium loudspeaker on the afternoon that this current Limerick team made their first significant breakthrough.
The Limerick players, and their supporters who thronged the field afterwards, would not have taken too much notice but the lyrics encapsulated so much of the pain and suffering they had endured, especially in Division 1B, during that decade.
“Honey, you’re familiar, like my mirror years ago/Idealism sits in prison . . /Innocence died screaming . . .”
By half-time that afternoon, when trailing by eight points, and with Galway seemingly cruising, it looked to be an all too familiar scene for Limerick, like that old mirror. Another season in Division 1B seemed inevitable but Limerick refused to remain locked into that prison. They dug and dug their way out before eventually breaking into the light.
That game is largely forgotten about now, especially in the context of what Limerick have achieved since. Yet that match was also an important turning point in the path Galway have subsequently taken over the following six seasons.
Reigning All-Ireland champions at that time, surrendering such a dominant position in that match and finding themselves pushed further back into the chasing pack has been a metaphor for how Galway’s journey has largely unfolded ever since.
In the intervening years, Limerick have lost just one knockout championship match – the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final to Kilkenny. Galway on the other hand, have lost five knockout championship games, three of which have come at the hands of Limerick – 2018, 2020 and 2022.
They may be operating in a different province but no other county should have as much motivation and incentive to take down Limerick as Galway - particularly when most of the current pain really began after the 2018 All-Ireland final defeat.
A lot of those Galway players have since moved on. The league is always only the league. The championship is the obvious place to heal some of that hurt but Galway also had the opportunity yesterday to do what only one county – Cork - has managed in league and championship since 2018; to beat Limerick on three occasions.
With less than 15 minutes remaining in Pearse Stadium, that prospect looked dead when Galway trailed by eight points. After scoring six unanswered points in nine minutes though, Limerick could feel the heat from Galway’s breaths on their neck.
That third win – albeit all in league games – suddenly seemed on the cards if Galway could sustain that momentum and scoring surge. They couldn’t - Limerick just sprinted away from the home side when hitting the last three scores.
This was Limerick’s first win in Pearse Stadium since that breakthrough game in 2018. More good memories. It’s still only February but for Galway, it was another day of coming up short against the side they desperately want to beat.
In the last week, Kenny Archer wrote a brilliant piece, laced with numbers and dates, to outline the misery Mayo had suffered at the hands of Tyrone in MacHale Park for over three decades.
Tyrone hadn’t lost at the Castlebar venue for more than 30 years, in October 1992 in Section C of the league, to be precise, when a Mayo side managed by Kerry’s Jack O’Shea won the match.
In the intervening years, Tyrone had returned to Castlebar on seven occasions and had come away with a result every time, five wins and two draws. Prior to Saturday, the last time the sides had met in Castlebar, Tyrone’s narrow win simultaneously saved them from relegation, while sending Mayo through the Division 1 trapdoor for the first time in 23 years.
The streak had to end somewhere and, under a new management and a renewed sense of optimism – not that it’s ever any different – Mayo did so in the ideal way on Saturday evening; four goals; 12 different scorers; Tommy Conroy back on the field again for the first time in over a year. Tyrone put in their place. Perfect.
Mayo were very impressive but the performance still carried a small asterisk because this was another worrying performance from Tyrone. After starting the game in a whirlwind when getting the scoreboard moving early and feasting on turnovers, Tyrone fell apart once Mayo turned up the heat.
They always had men behind the ball but structure means nothing when it lacks intensity, cohesiveness and the edge which Tyrone always need to get their mojo moving. Four goals could have been six or seven for Mayo.
The closest Tyrone came to raising a green flag was when Frank Burns, Kieran McGeary and Darren McCurry had late goalbound shots blocked by a phalanx of Mayo defenders in quick succession.
It was a symbol of the evening – and the halting of the streak. Mayo were just determined to put an end to it.
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