Goals may win matches but stopping goals is kind of important too. In the minor goal fest that was Sunday’s latest round of the Allianz Hurling League, no team illustrated that point better than Clare.
Because in beating Tipperary 4-15 to 0-20 in Thurles, the All-Ireland champions not only broke the trend of every team so far enjoying home victories, they also kept the only clean sheet in Division 1 A: every other team in the top flight found the net on Sunday, leaving Tipperary’s lack of a goal a somewhat damning statistic, especially given the fact they scored five against Kilkenny in the previous round.
So, while Conor McGrath grabbed the headlines for claiming three of Clare’s four goals on the day - finishing with 3-1 in total - defender Conor Ryan grabbed some of the more modest plaudits. Yet Ryan, operating at centre back, reckoned there was no particularly unique tactic or emphasis placed on their defensive game, other than making sure Tipp’s goal chances were kept to an absolute minimum.
“No, there wasn’t any specific plan to target the Tipp forwards,” said Ryan. “Back there, it’s just ruthless, to be honest. If your man has the ball ,you just have to hold yourself accountable. We knew the kind of scores that Tipp are capable of putting up, and that was just the main thing, that we weren’t going to let that happen.
“Like what they put up against Kilkenny, to lose that game, was phenomenal. So we knew exactly the ammunition they had, and we knew we were in for a fight. So we just stood up to it, and another clean sheet as well, which is great.”
Clare did concede two goals to Dublin in the previous round, but claimed a clean sheet against Kilkenny, in the opening round. For Ryan that comes down to attitude as much as anything else, something he felt Clare got absolutely right against Tipperary on Sunday, but badly wrong against Dublin in the game before.
“I suppose, with the Dublin game, we were really hurting for the few days after. We knew we didn’t do ourselves justice, that wasn’t the Clare team that we know we can be. Nobody ever likes to lose, but since Davy Fitzgerald has come in, losing really does hurt us, and we were hurt against Dublin. We just said we didn’t want to feel like that again this year. I suppose that’s the character of the man that’s over us. We’re not saying we’re going to go out and win every single game from here on in, but we’re going to go out and try to put in the performances.”
Given Fitzgerald’s own concerns about the physical and mental state of his team due to the naturally abundant distractions since their All-Ireland victory, Clare’s performances haven’t been far off where they left off last year. Both of their remaining games are at home, against Waterford this Sunday and then Galway on Sunday week - and one more victory would almost certainly be enough to see them through to the quarter-finals.
“Well, we’re just taking every game as it comes,” said Ryan. “At this time of year it’s about performances. If that comes with league quarter-finals and semi-finals then all the better. But we’re just trying to maintain a consistent performance, and the one thing we don’t want to do is drop it. What we did against Kilkenny, we had a good performance and then we completely dropped it against Dublin. It was probably just that we didn’t have the same focus. We know when we’re a focused, ruthless team we’re a different animal.
“So we won’t be saying we need a point, or we don’t need anything. We’ll just be going out in every game to try and do the best we can. We certainly don’t want to be where we were last year, down in a relegation play-off, so we’ll drive on from here.”
