For a man reluctant to say in a long-ago television interview that a setback had ‘hurt’ him – “full backs can’t say that they’re hurt!” – Brian Lohan is candid about his feelings when Wexford were six ahead as the clock moved into the 60th minute.
Were you worried?
“Ah well, look, after conceding a goal we were six points down and we were in trouble. There’s no getting away from it; we were in trouble. It just meant the lads that were on the field had to respond and we’ve got fairly good guys who did respond.”
Respond they did with an unanswered 1-6 turning the match on its head in the last 10 minutes. The recovery was spearheaded by replacements, Aron Shanagher and Shane Meehan, who came up with 1-4 between them.
“I suppose we had put our lads under pressure, that we were going to need a performance from all the guys that came on,” said the manager.
Clare had embarked on Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final with a lot going on in their minds. How would they react to the demands of an epic Munster final? Would the disciplinary shenanigans of the previous week have taken a toll on the team?
Lohan was asked had it been a distraction.
“No, it wasn’t really. We thought that we had managed it fairly well but you can see from the first half that we weren’t as tuned in as we should have been. Credit to Wexford, they got their tactics right and probably could have gone in in a stronger position but we were happy enough to go in level at half-time.
“We didn’t play well for long periods and you know, some of our marquee guys didn’t play well. But they are our marquee guys because they are marquee guys. And they keep going. There’s good stuff in them.
“They’re hard workers. You probably have some of the most exceptional talents that have ever been produced in Clare and they’re really hard workers as well. So, great to see them respond like that.”
Despite all the adversity, Clare managed to put away a persistent challenge from a Wexford side badly handicapped by the loss of leading forward Rory O’Connor in the 15th minute.
Their manager Darragh Egan paid tribute to O’Connor and the team, who coped well until attrition set in.
“We ran out of bodies there for a finish. I thought the two Recks were absolutely outstanding. Shane Reck, who was after having a 16-week hamstring injury, did an unbelievable job on Tony Kelly, as he always does. He is a great player.
“When the two boys went off, a few holes started appearing in our defence. But to be fair to Clare, they started to up it through the gears and they started to come at us in waves from their half-back line and midfield, all credit to them for how they finished the game.”
Egan has had a good year with the team from the 100 per cent record in regulation league matches to a Leinster campaign in which they lost just once. He was bullish about the future.
“We’ve 12 under-20s in our 41-man panel and it’s now all about development. Development starts today for them. They need to be ready for when we go back training in December. There’s no point in only starting in the winter.
“They need to get ready now. Hugely enjoyable experience. There’s lots to it. It’s something I’m going to have to focus on over the next few months because when I get these boys back in December I want to have a right cut off 2023.”
