JOHN OWENS stands in the middle of Fraher Field, the sweat still pouring from his brow, and deftly articulates how important it was for Waterford to secure their place in the Munster football semi-final.

“Clare came down here and played very well in the first half, they deserved everything they got,” he explained. “They were dominating us and we just couldn’t get on top of them for a spell in the second half.

“Once we got a wee bit of dominance there before half-time, it brought us closer to parity and we were happy enough going into the dressingroom at the break. We had a bit of a wind coming out and the main thing was to hit long balls into Gary (Hurney).

“One of them, he caught it brilliantly and banged it. It was just great to see him hitting the back of the net. Credit to Clare, they came down here and put a lot of effort into pinning us back. They can leave with their heads held high. There wasn’t a lot between us.

“We’ve got two weeks of pure work ahead of us now for Limerick. It’s going to be a powerful day down here in two weeks’ time. Hopefully we’ll have as much support as possible because that’s helping all the time.

“We’re looking to the possibility of getting to a Munster final and we’re going to give it our very best shot to nail that down. We know they have a lot of very good players who work very well as a team. We’ll have to up our game from today and drive on from there.”

Clare manager Michael McDermott did not dispute that the better side had won.

“It is disappointing, big time,” he said. “The game was within our grasp to win. We played well enough to win it. We improved a lot from the last day we were down here. But we just lacked that cutting edge here today.”

McDermott had some complaints about match referee Aidan Mangan. “I’ve no problem with the hand pass or new rules like that,” he said, “but I have to say the referee made some very bad calls on us today. It’s one thing playing advantage. But when a guy is fouled, and there’s no advantage accrued from it, you should get your free.

“ That happened six or seven times in the second half. We were called for over-carrying too and that came from being fouled, and they had to try and break away from the foul. There’s no advantage in that.”