TAKE IT AS RED
Rebels retain title with 5th win over Banner in 5 years & 11th success in 13 games
CLARE players, management and supporters must be asking themselves this morning, ‘Why always Cork?’
Many of them experienced their greatest day at the Rebels’ expense when beating them in the 2013 Allireland final after a replay, but the retribution has been severe since.
Yesterday’s defeat was Clare’s fifth in Championship hurling to Cork in the last five years and, indeed, Cork have beaten them in 11 of their last 13 Championship meetings, the 2013 finals being the exceptions.
Yesterday was Clare’s best chance to reverse the trend of failure and it appeared to be theirs to lose approaching half-time.
John Conlon had taken a wrecking ball to the Cork defence with 0-5 from play as well as being fouled for a converted free that saw his second marker Colm Spillane was booked.
Damien Cahalane had been relieved of Conlon duties after the Clonlara man’s fourth point in the 18th minute.
The largely quiet Tony Kelly had set David Reidy up for the game’s opening goal in the 17th minute and Peter Duggan doubled on a long range free from Donal Tuohy 16 minutes later to put Clare in control.
Conlon tagged on his fifth point shortly afterwards and wagged his finger as he wheeled away having increased his side’s lead to eight points. Christopher Joyce hit him a dunt with his shoulder but Conlon barely seemed to break stride.
As it turned out, he wouldn’t score again and the game was about to turning irretrievably in Cork’s favour.
From the resultant Anthony Nash puckout, Seamus Harnedy fielded it brilliantly and took off before offloading to Luke Meade. Goal.
Mark Coleman sliced over a huge sideline and suddenly the half-time deficit was much more manageable for Cork at 2-11 to 1-10.
With that Nash puckout for the first Cork goal, the ownership of this game effectively changed hands from Conlon to Harnedy. Of course, there were other heroic Cork performances, not least from Patrick Horgan yet again, whose two superb points from play in the first half kept his side in touch when Clare were on top, but Harnedy’s contribution was most central to the outcome.
Having hit a point in the first half, he added 1-3 in the second, his goal proving to be a fatal blow to Clare’s challenge.
The crisp deliveries to Conlon that brought about their best moments in the first half dried up.
Conor Mcgrath came on in the second half and gave the Clare attack some much needed spark in one of his better contributions in the last year or so but, apart from that, the threat was minimal.
Even Duggan, one of their success stories of this campaign, struggled as the stakes rose as his accuracy from placed balls deserted him.
Once again, Kelly was too peripheral and when he had a goal chance in the last few minutes he was blocked and then took a point when his side needed a green flag.
The sides were level in the 59th minute before Harnedy struck his goal but even before that you felt that the match was only going one way, with Darragh Fitzgibbon’s early second half point helping Cork to harness the momentum they created before half-time.
Bill Cooper and a Horgan free put Cork five clear and while Ian Galvin hit an injury time goal for Clare, it proved to be their last attack with the raucous support they enjoyed in the early stages among the 45,364 attendance having quietened.
A silver lining for Clare? They lost successive Munster finals in 1993 and ‘94 before ending their drought the following year but, unlike then, they still have an All-ireland to play for this year with former manager Davy Fitzgerald and Wexford their likely next opponents on July 14/15.
Cork, meanwhile, return to Croke Park at the end of the month with a clear conviction to add a 31st Allireland to their 54th Munster title.