Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IT BOILS DOWN TO ACCURACY..
DOWN suffered another home league defeat as a costly 15 wides dented their promotion push from Division Two.
Fourteen-man Clare took full advantage of the Mourne men’s wastefulness in Newry – which also included a Darragh O’hanlon penalty attempt sailing over the bar early in the second half.
Clare’s accuracy in front of the posts earned them a first league win of the season after two draws earlier in the campaign.
Eoin Cleary nailed 0-7 from dead balls from seven attempts.
His brilliant sideline conversion from inside the
21-yard line was the score of the day.
Sean O’donoghue’s goal after 35 seconds gave Clare a dream start and they led almost the whole way.
They were only level twice, once when Donal O’hare’s 19th minute goal made it 1-4 apiece.
Clare led 1-9 to 1-5 at half-time and while they were unconvincing in the second half and struggled to string three passes together, Down’s error count ensured they stayed in front.
Even the dismissal of Ciaran Russell in the 54th minute for two bookable offences didn’t derail them with Down failing to make their dominance count on the scoreboard.
Both sides now have four points from four games and, such is the nature of Division Two this season, either could still be involved in the promotion shake-up or a relegation dogfight.
This was Down’s seventh home league defeat out of the last eight games but manager Eamonn Burns insisted: “It has nothing to do with the venue.
“We are doing a lot of things right but for whatever reason today we couldn’t put the ball over the bar.”