Three reasons the Cork hurlers lost to Clare

EXPERIENCE

Three times in the second half, Cork drew level only for Clare to respond on each occasion, with Diarmuid Ryan landing what ultimately proved to be the winner.

As Pat Ryan alluded to after the game, some of the experience and know-how manifested itself in the quick restarts after Cork’s equalisers – in contrast, Patrick Collins was pulled in the first half for being both too slow and too fast with puck-outs – but Clare ensured that Cork were never able to ride a wave of momentum. 

The Banner’s reward is a second successive final appearance.

CLARE HALF-BACK LINE

While the starting Cork half-forward line of Declan Dalton, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Conor Cahalane combined for 2-3 between them, their opposite numbers all put in big shifts for Clare. Diarmuid Ryan and David McInerney had six points between them, with four of them in the last 20 minutes, with the wing-backs always providing a valuable out ball. In between them, John Conlon was his usual totemic presence at centre-back, hoovering up any loose Cork deliveries.

GOAL CHANCE EFFICIENCY

While Cork out-goaled their hosts by three to two, there were other chances that were not capitalised upon whereas Clare did well to ensure that they had close to a maximum return from their opportunities for green flags.

In addition, the home side had a better return when it came to choosing to take the easy point rather than forcing the goal chance.