14-man Clare produce season-best display to beat Dublin

Clare: 2-22 Dublin: 2-20

Even those perfectly fluent in body language would struggle to understand Davy Fitzgerald right now. Is that a brave face or a defiant one? Are those shoulders shrugged in disregard or disgust?

What is certain is this wasn’t simply a first league victory for Clare hurling: claims made in this newspaper that two panel members – Davy O’Halloran and Nicky O’Connell – left the panel last week, after what O’Halloran described as “humiliating” punishment from Fitzgerald for an apparently minor breach of discipline, didn’t so much overshadow Saturday’s game as shine a light directly on it.

Clare did plenty of talking on the field – easily their best performance of the year, tearing into and eventually tearing down Dublin – and yet Fitzgerald was distinctly terse afterwards, standing in the bright sunshine at Cusack Park with the look of a man who wasn’t going to say much, even if his body or indeed mouth wanted to.

“I suppose you guys and others have to write stories, and there is nothing I can do about it,” he started, when quizzed about O’Halloran’s comments. “As I said to the lads, we don’t need to listen to stuff or do whatever. We just concentrate on our own thing. And we are an honest team, so we are. We still have stuff to improve on from today and we will. The only panic that was out there was guys that want to create.”

“In Clare we do things properly. There is a code of discipline and that’s it and we’ll just drive on. The lads have been great, absolutely fantastic.”

Punishment

Yet according to O’Halloran, the punishment for being caught out socialising one night (although not actually drinking) meant no dialogue was allowed with other team-mates at sessions and he was made to train alone in a corner of the pitch doing intensive physical work: O’Halloran also claimed he felt particularly aggrieved by the punishment when realising a fellow but more senior member of the squad was exempt from similar sanction, despite what he considered a more serious breach.

“110 per cent, 110 per cent that didn’t happen,” said Fitzgerald, when asked did this double standard actually happen. “But people can write what they want to write, there’s no hassle with that. But look, the only other thing I will say about this, is that we as a management would be very fair on what we do. There are rules there, that’s it. And listen, I am very, very happy that we have done everything correct and I know the players are as well, that they are very happy with that as well.

“The bottom line is the lads (O’Halloran and O’Connell) aren’t bad lads, they are good lads and I wish them all the beat with their clubs going forward, and fair play to them. But that’s all I’m going to say. You’re making the big deal over it, not me” – before demanding we all leave it all that.

The fact only 2,753 showed up may or may be some tell-tale-sign of unease with Fitzgerald’s actions, and yet the body language of the team afterwards was easily read. Shane O’Donnell was back to his youthful smiley self, having played a big part in tormenting the Dublin defence, and Tony Kelly – who shot a brilliant 1-9, showing no ill-effects of his lengthy Fitzgibbon Cup excursion – raced off the field as if already looking forward to next week’s showdown with Kilkenny.

Indeed it was a victory reminiscent of Clare’s fighting spirit of 2013, considering they played the entire second half with 14 men (Brendan Bugler red-carded on 34 minutes for an off-the-ball incident) and were chasing a five-point deficit as late as the 50th minute. Suddenly, leaders popped up from everywhere, especially corner back David McInerney (who hit a monster point), with John Conlon and Conor McGrath finishing with 1-9 between them.

“By God did they show courage,” Fitzgerald duly noted. “But nothing that I wouldn’t expect from these guys. That’s there in them.”

For Dublin manager Ger Cunningham the question wasn’t so much what went wrong, but why. They’d got a run on Clare from early on, Liam Rushe’s long-range effort on nine minutes - which badly wrong-footed Clare goalkeeper Donal Tuohy, swept over the line by Cian Boland - easing Dublin them in front, and they went seven points up, late in the first half, before Conlon’s almost freak goal brought Clare back into it.

Still, Dublin were a winning position midway through the second, and while the loss of Michael Carton to injury didn’t help, the extra man should have.

“I thought we improved on last week,” said Cunningham, “put ourselves in a good position to win the game, but we seemed to lose our shape in the second half, and Clare got the momentum going, as they can do, got the crowd behind them, and got ahead. Sometimes it’s difficult to know with the extra man, do you push up the field, or protect what you have?

“But Clare had to win today. They had no choice but to win. It was always a tough task, always formidable, but again we put ourselves into a winning position, and didn’t close it out. But a team gets momentum, the crowd behind them, at home, and sometimes it’s hard to stop the flow of the tide.”

Cunningham was right about one thing: Clare had no choice but to win this.

CLARE: D Tuohy; P Flanagan, C Dillon, D McInerney (0-1); B Bugler, C Ryan, P O'Connor; P Donnellan (0-1), C Galvin; J Conlon (1-4, two frees), T Kelly (1-9, seven frees), S Golden; C McGrath (0-5), S O'Donnell, A Cunningham (0-1). Subs: D Reidy (0-1) for Goldon (42 mins), J Browne for O'Connor (52 mins), D O'Donovan for Flanagan (64 mins), B Duggan for Cunningham (70 mins).
DUBLIN: A Nolan; P Schutte, C O'Callaghan, M Carton; C Crummy (0-1), P Kelly, S Barrett (0-1); S Durkin, C Cronin; D Sutcliffe (0-1), P Ryan (0-5, all frees), M Schutte (0-3); D O'Callaghan (1-4), L Rushe (0-4), C Boland (1-0). Subs: N Corcoran for Carton (35 mins, inj), B Quinn (0-1) for Cronin (55 mins), C Keaney for Corcoran (60 mins), E Dillon for Sutcliffe (64 mins).
Referee: Cathal McAllister (Cork)