'We didn’t play well enough' — Tony Kelly laments Clare's Munster final performance

“Losing is obviously disappointing in itself but it’s the performance bit that would eat at you more so," the Banner talisman says.

Wed, 12 Jun, 2024 - 06:08

John Fogarty

Tony Kelly’s biggest regret from Sunday’s Munster SHC final was Clare’s inability to “force” Limerick to win the game.

The Division 1 winners returned to training on Tuesday night aiming to recover from their third consecutive provincial decider defeat to Limerick.

Kelly is confident they can bounce back against Laois or Wexford in Saturday week’s All-Ireland quarter-final but he admits his team’s display in Thurles was enraging.

“Losing is obviously disappointing in itself but it’s the performance bit that would eat at you more so. The 2022 final, it was just a helter-skelter final and anyone could have won it. Last year, we felt we left chances after us coming down the home straight but we performed relatively well but the last day we didn’t play well enough in general.

“We got a bit of a purple patch… when I say we got a bit of a purple patch eight, nine, 10 minutes of the second half and we didn’t even capitalise on it or get closer to ask the question.

“Feeling like we didn’t force them to win it if you get what I mean whereas the two previous years we felt we did as in we performed. We could have no complaint at the weekend. They were the better team from start to finish.

“We probably didn’t make use of the wind in the first half and we knew we needed that goal big time before half-time and then in the second half we needed to get the goal that they got.”

A seventh Munster SHC final defeat for Clare since their last success in 1998, Kelly knows how invested the county were in ending that famine but the team have learned to move on from it. “It’s a huge motivation for ourselves individually, collectively. It’s a huge thing within the county as well. There’s no getting away from it. The county is starved of Munster success. It’s not that we’re not getting to the final, it’s not getting over the line and actually winning it is the frustration thing.

“Not getting bogged down in it, I suppose that’s the biggest difference from 2022 when we probably threw everything at the Munster championship and hit a wall effectively. We got out of a quarter-final (v Wexford), probably didn’t deserve to get out of a quarter-final whereas last year we probably learned from it, didn’t hit a wall in the quarter-final (v Dublin) but didn’t play well in the first half of the semi-final (v Kilkenny) and played very well for 20-25 minutes of the second half and were beaten by three points.

“You can take learnings from it as well. It’s obviously something we want to achieve but we have to park it now until next winter. It’s all about next Saturday week for us.”

The 30-year-old accepts he might be more prepared than others to move on from Sunday’s disappointment having missed out on several games this year due to an ankle injury.

“Yeah, in a way because when you’ve come back from that kind of a break you’re made to get going and get into it.

“I would say myself, even the lads who are the periphery and not seeing much game-time and getting maybe 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there, it’s on them lads and the panel members to really drive it on because now you’re heading into an All-Ireland series coming off a loss and there are probably a couple of places up for grabs. They’re the kind of lads that drive the energy especially this week.

“The lads who played at the weekend mightn’t be doing much early in the week so it’s them lads who will have to come with the energy and drive it and kick it on because you can’t wallow and feel sorry for yourselves because if you head into Thurles on Saturday week or if you’re lucky enough to get to Croke Park you’ll be found out and we were in 2022.”