Three reasons Cork were beaten by Clare: Rebels can't argue with the result

Better team won 

Cork can have no excuses because Clare were the better side on the day and their margin of victory would have been greater but for the 14 wides accumulated, seven in either half.

Nearly all of Clare’s points came from play with some brilliant efforts from Emmett McMahon, Keelan Seton and captain Eoin Cleary while Cork were too reliant on the free-taking of Steven Sherlock, who kicked 10 of his side’s 13 points.

Clare showed plenty of character too, coming from four points down early in the second-half to first of all restore parity and then supply an answer to every question posed by Cork.

Clare learned lessons 

It was their third meeting of 2023 and Banner boss Colm Collins and his management team obviously learned lessons initially from the McGrath Cup defeat in Quilty in early January but more recently in the league loss in Ennis.

They coughed up two goals that day and Cork had other chances, too, but on this occasion, only Brian O’Driscoll saw the whites of keeper Stephen Ryan’s eyes and the crossbar intervened to deny the visitors.

Clare regularly pulled 13 outfield players behind the ball, when Cork had possession and they set-up barricades around their defence with a No Entry policy in place from the throw-in.

Kick-outs 

Cork struggled around the middle third both on their kick-out and from their opponents’, too, with Darragh Bohannon and half-time replacement Darren O’Neill winning ball or breaking it to waiting colleagues.