Clara /Shamrocks

[juteman]

Excellent result today. An excellent match played hard and fair. Now that the cars parked, more pints to follow and must remember to book off October 9th!!

Shamrocks were too full sure of today’s match and paid the price. Clara made a lot of errors but did play well. They are young and the last 2 games will stand to them. Shamrocks supporters have had flags on their cars for the last 6 weeks!!!!!!!! What’s the story there???
A Ballycumber mate of mine was telling me today before the match that he had a drink in the Thatch Saturday night and the talk was who was going to mark Niall McNamaee in the final??

Rhode will be hot favourites and I would encourage everyone to keep up this line. LS you will have to give us more generous odds than for today’s match.

[Lone Shark]

Ye'll get the odds ye deserve. That was an even match today, and no-one could have convinced me any different. As for the final, 2/1 or so. I'll have to read the reports of the weekend matches first though.

[Tom]

There was alot of ralk from the shamrocks lads about how they'd sort out the mcnamees in the final... now there is alot of talk about who rhode will get in leinster... keep this kind of talk goin... cause clara will relish beating the favorites...

Come on the town...

[The Magpie]

Great game of football. Hard at times, but certainly mostly fair. Shamrocks were very close to pulling level in the last 10 minutes. They actually steam-rolled Clara for the last 10 minutes, winning every break around the middle and charging forward, but the Clara backs and goalkeeper stood firm. Excellent defending under a hell of a lot of pressure.
You have to wonder if this Shamrocks team has a Dowling Cup in them. They've been coming for a long time now. I still think they're one of the strongest teams in the County, but can they keep coming back after all the setbacks?
As for the town, we might just be finding our form at the right time. We'll have to raise our game further than we did yesterday to beat Rhode, but I suspect Clara are the last team Rhode want to play in the County final.

[Bogman]

Congratulations to Clara! They're well set up to exploit their biggest asset - T. Deehan. For a lot of the game Clara operated a 1 man full forward line and it worked a treat. Tommo is just brilliant at taking up the right positions to receive the ball and even though he misses his share he still puts over enough to beat most teams in Offaly!!

Shamrocks will be upset to lose to a Clara team which boasted only one man (TD) scoring from play. The Rahan/Mucklagh combo had to bring back Neville and Thomas Coughlan at different times to shore up the defence. Niall Bryant made a big difference when he came on. They left it late to make the surge which always looked on the cards and then when they got within a point they missed several chances.

Fair play to Clara and here's hoping we have a good County Final.

[redser]

Decent game, alot better than the other semi anyway.

Liam Boland seemed to have a nightmare. Some very questionable decisions in a tight game. Costly for Shamrocks. Clara seem to be getting alot of lucky breaks this year even against Ballycumber.

Cant see them puting up much resistence to Rhode.

Rhode will win the Dowling for third year in a row but wont go too far in Leinster.

[Bord na Mona man]

Good win for the magpies. I'd say Shamrocks will wonder how they didn't manage to get level. They spent 10 minutes trying to get an equaliser having hit 5 points in about 5 minutes before that.

It was obvious from the off that Clara were really up for this game. For a team with several light players, they really through themselves into tackles and swarmed the man in possession. Shamrocks appeared surprised by the intensity of some of Clara's early play. I think Clara's motivation was not to be pushed around by a physically stronger Shamrocks.

Isolating Reynolds and Deehan and bringing back Tony Dalton as the spare man worked well for Clara. Dalton won plenty of aimless ball that Shamrocks punted into the Clara half and took the ball forward with great purpose. It was only at half time when Shamrocks brought on Niall Bryant to win ball in front of their inside forwards that they turned this dominance around. On the other hand Shamrocks extra man in their full back line, played behind the markers of Deehan and Reynolds and ended up doing little except watching shots sail goalwards.

Clara probably showed their inexperience in letting Shamrocks back so quickly in the second half. They needed to kill the game more between scores and keep possession. However the doggedness of the defending made up for this. Only 6 of the Clara team that started yesterday played in the 2003 team that beat Rhode in the county final. It would be a massive achievement to repeat the dose.

[The Magpie]

Have to question you on some of those points Redser. The Referee was bad both ways, and I think you'll find that quite a number of questionable frees were awarded to Shamrocks in the last 15 minutes. Both teams had chances to win the game - the better team took them.

As for the Ballycumber game, I'm guessing that you're referring to the square ball incident - this one couldn't have been more clear cut.

Believe it or not, Clara had more luck getting to the County final in 2003. Shamrocks had Clara on the ropes in the first semi-final, which was eventually drawn - and Clara were very very lucky to draw it.

[Lone Shark]

-The big advantage is that despite what some of their east county rivals will tell you, Clara are the only club that with justification can say that Rhode don't scare them. They may have lost that semi in 2004, but I believe that this team will have faith in themselves to hold on when the pressure comes on. In saying that, the Rhode half back line has been extremely powerful so far, and I would assume that they won't just follow their Clara markers back into midfield and leave a load of space for the inside players.

There was alot of ralk from the shamrocks lads about how they'd sort out the mcnamees in the final... now there is alot of talk about who rhode will get in leinster... keep this kind of talk goin... cause clara will relish beating the favorites...

No disrespect, but where are you hearing all this stuff? I can't imagine anyone, no matter how biased, looking past a county final??

[d-man]

Excellent result today. An excellent match played hard and fair. Now that the cars parked, more pints to follow and must remember to book off October 9th!!

Shamrocks were too full sure of today’s match and paid the price. Clara made a lot of errors but did play well. They are young and the last 2 games will stand to them. Shamrocks supporters have had flags on their cars for the last 6 weeks!!!!!!!! What’s the story there???
A Ballycumber mate of mine was telling me today before the match that he had a drink in the Thatch Saturday night and the talk was who was going to mark Niall McNamaee in the final??

Rhode will be hot favourites and I would encourage everyone to keep up this line. LS you will have to give us more generous odds than for today’s match.

Totally agree J.

Everything worked well, Tony Dalton sweeping up, Dave Collins bullying Malone out of it, Stephen Deehan running riot - Shamrocks changed Coughlan back to mark him. We had a game plan that worked and they struggled to counter it. Although we did let them back in a bit too easy midway through second half and we were living on a prayer with the melee on the goaline in the final minute. Lots of claims that a Clara man picked the ball straight up, but thems the breaks!

Rhode are still defo hot favourites but at the same time they are not looking forward to playing Clara at all. Poor auld PK is going around since Sat night complaining "the whole place is against us".

We definitely have to play up the underdogs tag

[redser]

No, the referee was very bad. Some terrible soft frees given to clara and amazed how the clara man didnt get straight red for what he did below the stand in the second half.

Having said that magpie is probably right, shamrocks had plenty of chances they fluffed to win it.

Joe Quinn man of the match?

[Bord na Mona man]

Shamrocks' 2nd point was wide from my vantage point.
However I don't think the refereeing affected the overall result.

[Bord na Mona man]

Joe Quinn played brilliant stuff at full back.
The Rhode attack will be a completely different test for him though, however I think for workrate and versatility alone, he should be on the Offaly panel next year.

[The Magpie]

I also thought Shamrock's second score was wide - was that Brian Monaghan's effort?

Also, did anybody see Thomas Deehan's attempt in the second half, which he (and others) seemed to think went over, only to be waved wide?

Joe Quinn had a big game and he certainly is versatile. Hard to call a man of the match on this one. At different times in the game, Clara had big performances from 3-4 players.

[the rat]

this was the best game i seen all year. i cant understand why shamrocks left neville coughlan full back in the second half, when they had clara on the ropes i would have moved him to midfeild/half foward where his pace could have troubled clara. steven deehan would have been my man of the match, his pace really troubled shamrocks. does anyone think derek molloy could make the county team next year?