Clare manager Brian Lohan said his team had given everything and insisted he had no complaints after their narrow loss to Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Lohan’s side, big underdogs beforehand, had led from the 13th minute until the start of second half injury-time, only to be undone by an Aidan O’Connor goal.
The 2024 All-Ireland champions led by six points with less than 15 minutes of normal time remaining after Tony Kelly rocketed home a penalty to leave the score at 1-19 to 0-16.
However, the Clare crowd were incensed at Thomas Walsh’s decision to spare Nickie Quaid a black card or worse for his part in the concession of the penalty.
The Limerick goalkeeper had crashed into Peter Duggan as the Clare full-forward scooped the ball over him. He may also have clawed Duggan’s face-guard in the process.
After consultation, Walsh decided a yellow would suffice to the outrage of the Clare support. The reason given was that Duggan was no longer in possession when Quaid collided with him.
Penalty for Clare and no black card for Nickie Quaid
Tony Kelly dispatches his finish in what could be a pivotal moment in the game
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Asked about it afterwards, Lohan was magnanimous.
“Look, those calls are tough calls to make,” the Clare manager said.
“I’ll take your word for it if you think he got it right. We’re not going to have any complaints.
“We came up, we gave everything we had. We felt we needed 110% from all our players – and we probably got 110%.
“But we probably needed 115%. It was one of those kind of days, one of those kind of performances.
“We’ll have to congratulate Limerick and look forward to the All-Ireland final now.”
Brian Lohan: We’ll have to congratulate Limerick and look forward to the All-Ireland final”
The Clare boss admitted that their hand was forced in taking Conor Cleary off early in the second half, after he was penalised for a series of fouls on Gearóid Hegarty in either half.
The full-back had been informed that one more foul and he’d be sent off.
“We were told he was on a yellow card and noted,” Lohan said. “So, it wasn’t really left in our hands.
“The free count was… I think they had 14 scorable and we had eight scorable. So they probably did well on the free count.”
It had been a match-up that was faring well for Clare in the first half, like so many others.
Clare were highly unfancied heading into the game on foot of their Munster campaign, which included a 15-point mauling at the hands of Limerick in Cusack Park in May.
However, their first half display made a nonsense of those pre-match predictions, as they thundered into the game, with Kelly and Peter Duggan in sparkling form in attack, while their defence had great success in shackling Limerick.
“We had a really good week in training. There was a whole lot of energy, there was a whole lot of ambition and desire in the group.
“We felt we were in great shape, knowing that we would have to get everything right and give 110% or 115% or whatever it was.
“Our lads, as they generally do, gave everything that they had and were just a smidgen short.
“We spend a lot of time on match-ups. We have a really good backroom team.
Shane O’Donnell at full-time
“We have a very intelligent bunch of players who spend an awful lot of time, not juston their technical skills and physical skills and mental skills, but they do an awful lot ofanalysis as well.
“We worked as hard as we could to get the most out of ourselves. I can’t fault any of our guys.”
Having led 0-16 to 0-11 at the break, Clare scored just 1-03 into the Canal End goal as the match became increasingly stop-start and claustrophobic, with Limerick’s tally of 1-10 containing seven frees.
“It was very difficult out there, very difficult for both teams. We had our peaks, they had their peaks and they probably got just a little bit more from their peaks.
“Our endeavour and our work-rate and everything was excellent.
“I couldn’t fault anyone but sometimes you just maybe have to give a bit of credit to the opposition.”