DUBLIN\u00a03-20\u00a0<\/p>\n
CLARE\u00a02-26<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A dominant first-half showing\u00a0proved pivotal\u00a0as Clare defeated\u00a0a battling\u00a0Dublin by\u00a0three points in their Allianz National Hurling League Division 1B final at the TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick on Sunday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Banner\u00a0enjoyed a healthy, albeit wind-assisted\u00a02-15 to 2-5\u00a0lead\u00a0at the break with goals from Shane O\u2019Donnell and Shane Meehan only partially offset by green flags at the opposite end by John Hetherton and Cian O\u2019Sullivan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A string\u00a0of\u00a0six unanswered points in as many minutes at the start of the second-half offered hope to Dublin\u00a0but Clare tagged on points at crucial times to remain on the front foot despite a 63rd\u00a0minute goal by Fergal Whitely.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was a slow to start to proceedings with both teams guilty of some fundamental errors before Clare opened the scoring in the 5th\u00a0minute through a Mark Rodgers free.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dublin\u2019s first chance arrived soon after as they were awarded a penalty\u00a0following an attempted\u00a0trip on\u00a0O\u2019Sullivan and with Rory Hayes black carded for the offence, Hetherton left\u00a0\u00c9ibhear\u00a0Quilligan\u00a0rooted to the spot with a powerful shot into the bottom corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Dubs failed to build on that score as O\u2019Donnell raced clear to fire past Se\u00e1n Brennan in the 8th\u00a0minute and with both teams settling into the contest, O\u2019Sullivan restored parity within a minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Clare were making inroads up front, as reflected in points by Rodgers and O\u2019Donnell and while Darragh Power replied for Dublin, their opponents began to put further distance between the sides on the scoreboard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Rodgers brace and a Meehan score pushed Clare four points ahead and the latter\u00a0left Brennan helpless with a well-taken goal towards the end of the first quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dublin were in need of some encouragement at this stage and it duly arrived in the 22ndminute as O\u2019Sullivan reacted well to gather possession with his arrowed finish from ten yards reducing their deficit to five points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another Rodgers brace from frees highlighted the pressure on the Dublin defence\u00a0but their running game from deep gradually reaped dividends as Conor Donohoe popped over two points in quick succession.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Remarkably,\u00a0only\u00a0two\u00a0of Clare\u2019s\u00a0scores came outside their inside-forward line in the opening half, with\u00a0Peter Duggan and\u00a0Ryan Taylor on target while late points from Meehan and Rodgers\u00a0left the Banner ten points clear by the turnaround.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBLIN\u00a03-20\u00a0 CLARE\u00a02-26 \u00a0 A dominant first-half showing\u00a0proved pivotal\u00a0as Clare defeated\u00a0a battling\u00a0Dublin by\u00a0three points in their Allianz National Hurling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-384321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}