Last Sunday’s encounter between Limerick and Clare was the most unremarkable match this column has reported on since it began.
It was a mediocre game between two evenly matched teams, with no really outstanding individual performance on either side. In the end, the game was simply decided by Clare’s ability to create, and take, a couple of goal chances in the middle of the second half.
In terms of plays (excluding frees and sidelines), Limerick edged the first half 66-58, with Clare shading the second 69-67, for an overall count in favour of Limerick 133-127. Donal O’Grady was the busiest player on the field with 17 plays, with Ollie Moran (14), Mike O’Brien (12), Seamus Hickey (10) and Niall Moran (10) the only other Limerick players to make double figures. Amazingly, Donncha Sheehan didn’t play the ball once during his 40 minutes on the pitch.
For Clare, Brian O’Connell made the most plays (14), followed by Jonathan Clancy (who had a very good game), Pat Vaughan (many of them when he was a free agent in the first half) and Niall Gilligan (13 each), and then Colin Lynch and Diarmuid McMahon (12 each). By An Moltóir’s reckoning, Pat Donnellan only made three plays and Conor Plunkett four – extraordinarily low counts for half backs on a winning team.
The key period in this game came in the middle of the second half, after Limerick had reduced their seven-point half-time deficit to just two, 2-9 to 1-10. Had Limerick got the next score, they might well have gone on to win the game. However, after several minutes when there was no score at all, the roof fell in on the Shannonsiders when Clare plundered those two goals in quick succession. Even then, Limerick got back in touch, and with just four points between the teams on 69 minutes (4-11 to 1-16), and three minutes of overtime to come, if Limerick had got the next score, there would have been just a goal in it and we might have had a grandstand finish. Instead, Niall Gilligan closed the game out with an excellent point at the other end.
The only other thing really worth remarking on from this game was the extraordinarily low number of wides recorded by Limerick – just three in all and none at all in the second half. Is this a record at this level? Seventeen scores from 20 shots is a very high return rate, but 20 shots is itself rather low for top class senior hurling. Even though it was their goals that won them the match, Clare actually had a lot more shots than Limerick (26), and on this basis perhaps they were deserving winners in the end.
Clare might not have been great last Sunday, but they will still provide Tipperary with stern opposition. Tony Carmody and Niall Gilligan are showing some good form, Brian O’Connell and the evergreen Colin Lynch are providing a solid platform in midfield, and their defence has conceded just one goal in two games. Mike McNamara seems to have restored Diarmuid McMahon’s brittle confidence and Jonathan Clancy can make a real nuisance of himself. Their main concerns will be Tony Griffin’s hamstrings and the fact that, faced with a really top-class corner back, Mark Flaherty was not at the races.
Limerick now face a game against either Offaly or Dublin, and unless the lift their game substantially, they could be vulnerable against Dublin in particular. Indeed, if they can get over the disappointment of losing out to Wexford in a tie they should really have won the first day, the Dubs might decide that a game against Limerick (should this emerge from the draw) is a better prospect than facing slaughter against Kilkenny. If they can learn from the two games against Wexford (and they do need to do a lot of learning), they could well find themselves in a quarter final on their home turf in Croke Park, a prospect which they are sure to relish.
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