There was an irony in Tony Kelly’s selection as PwC-GPA Hurler of the Month for June, which was announced on Thursday. He had been in the conversation virtually every month of the season to date, but when he at last scooped the award, it was just days after the biggest let-down of the year for both him and Clare.
The drubbing received from Kilkenny last Saturday was both a bolt from the blue in terms of the Leinster champions’ performance as well as how deflated their opponents were.
Just a month after the immense Munster final, which Kelly brought to extra time with a sideline cut straight over the bar in the fourth minute of injury time and two weeks after their late comeback in the All-Ireland quarter-final had suppressed Wexford, Clare looked to be running on empty.
Kilkenny, for their part, were tuned in to a higher frequency.
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Gently the question is put: Is participation in an epic such as the Munster final, albeit that it ended in defeat by champions Limerick, not something to take from the campaign?
“In terms of consolation? No. There is nothing for getting there and playing in a great game.”
Kelly says that the team as a collective won’t attempt to process the defeat for a while but, in his own mind, he sees the failure as an accumulation of factors. For a start, centre back John Conlon — one of only four scheduled starters, along with Kelly, David McInerney and Shane O’Donnell, from the county’s All-Ireland win in 2013 — was ruled out before the throw-in.
“Obviously he was a massive loss,” says Kelly. “In terms of the switches that were made, we were confident in them. There was so much more than that aspect of losing John that let us down last weekend. That was only one of many things that didn’t go well for us.”
Their Munster form made them favourites. They have a stated affinity with Croke Park. On the day, however, ominous wides and scores — when they came — that were exceptionally hard earned were in stark contrast to opponents who were shooting scores from everywhere.
Kilkenny’s efficiency was off the charts in terms of executing their ball-to-hand, their shot-to-score ratio was extremely high in that first half
Kelly says that players are all too aware of what way a match is trending.
“I suppose you get a sense of it when you’re playing — a sense of momentum or where the direction of the match is going. You’re trying to do everything to claw that back. You knew playing the first half that Kilkenny had momentum. We were wasteful in possession. Our wide count and efficiency in front of goal just weren’t where we needed them to be — whether taking the wrong option or missing easy chances.
“Kilkenny’s efficiency was off the charts in terms of executing their ball-to-hand, their shot-to-score ratio was extremely high in that first half. We knew playing in that first half that things were not clicking and we were being very wasteful. When we came in at half-time, there was too much of a gap to claw it back.
“I know in ‘18 we went 10 points down to Galway and we got it back, but with 13 or 14 points at the weekend — that’s an insurmountable lead to concede to the likes of Kilkenny.”
The realisation that the match had likely got beyond their reach must have made the half-time dressing-room a difficult place.
“It is but you have to keep going. You have to try to improve the performance level. We knew at half-time that we were so far off what we had shown or what we could show. You have to keep plugging away. You have to keep going and get out in the second half and do things differently, obviously do them better.
“You can’t tog in and go home.”
Their Munster form was so good that they topped the provincial table, ahead of All-Ireland champions Limerick, who they played twice without losing in 70 minutes. The round-robin match ended in a draw, as had their league meeting, and the final needed extra time.
Kelly doesn’t believe that they targeted Limerick excessively, saying that the team’s overriding ambition was to qualify in one of the top three places.
Contrasting the two defeats they sustained, he feels — unsurprisingly — that the Kilkenny setback was worse.
“Both bad but probably the weekend is worse because if you are looking at the Munster final, when you look back on it -and we did — and dissect it, there are obviously areas where you are saying that was a chance or you could have got a score there or a score here.
“You are looking at a performance as a whole and you’re not too dissatisfied with it because you know that you were very close to winning, whereas at the weekend you’re extremely disappointed with the performance as a whole, that you never got going.”
Like Galway manager Henry Shefflin on Sunday, Clare were faced with the old dichotomy between performance and result.
“The performance just wasn’t there and whereas the performance was there in the Munster final, the result wasn’t.”
The other PwC-GPA Player of the Month winners for June were Caoimhe Costello (Limerick) for camogie, Doireann O’Sullivan (Cork) and Cillian McDaid (Galway) for football
