Clare get wind in their sails

GAELIC GAMES:GOALS REALLY are the gift that keep on giving. On an afternoon in Semple Stadium when the summer was as influential a player as anyone named in the programme, Limerick coughed up four goals to Clare and lost by the width of five points. Do the math and feel the regret.

Clare advance to a Munster final for the first time this century. Limerick retreat to the tangled crossroads that meet through the back door. Neither side seemed to leave Thurles entirely convinced about its fate.

It's a cruel, dog-eat-dog-as-takeaway-snack world down in the Munster hurling championship.

Justin is gone. The striking Rebels are gone. No Cork or Waterford in the final for the first time since 2001. Now Richie Bennis, whose charm and team were a storyline all summer long last year, are gone. Just like that, as if somebody switched off a light. Clare and Tipp remain standing. Laughing at the pundits.

Clare, who came into the season without a championship win since 2001, hurled well, but Limerick's charity in the first half swelled them artificially.

Limerick, hurling into the wind at this stage, looked like one of those sides who had spent the past few weeks hiding in the long grass making plans which were just about to come good. Colin Lynch had given Clare a point but Limerick had responded with three of their own before the 10th minute - Andrew O'Shaughnessy picking up the threads of last year's season and scoring them all.

Clare got another. Limerick got another.

When you are playing into a high wind and two points up maybe the mind wanders to the second half when the living will be easy. The auguries were good at the back too. Niall Gilligan got through on a burst and Brian Murray, the reigning All Star goalkeeper, made a decent save to shut him out.

And then! Out of the blue summer sky disaster descended.

Pat Vaughan launched a long, raking, wind-assisted ball from close to his own 50-metre line. It dropped behind a couple of flailing hurleys and bounced past Murray and into the net. The poor goalkeeper stood there, undone by the wind, the sun in his eyes, the lively bounce, everything.

Now things were critical and getting worse. Clare added a couple of points and suddenly Limerick looked less like a team who had been plotting an ambush than a side with no hurling done.

Clare lost Tony Griffin through injury but survived. Limerick were carrying players who weren't at the races.

And then! Three defenders are fastened to the back of Jonathan Clancy as the sub Declan O'Rourke throws some weight around. Murray is rooted, still stunned, on his goal-line. Somehow Clancy gets enough on the ball with a ground strike and puts it in the corner.

Lawdee, lawd. From high in the stand you can see the wind go out of Richie Bennis.

Richie, whose moonbeam face and easy words offered us novelty all through last year on the way to Kilkenny's inevitable win, is suddenly a sideshow. His side were in the odd position yesterday of not just playing for this season but playing for last season too. A win and a reprise of their epic waltz with Tipperary would have firmed up the case of those who said last year's Limerick were a side on the make. This loss gave succour to the flash-in-the-pan tendency.

Richie was downbeat afterwards, no longer brimming with declarations of love for this great game, more like a man who had left money hanging from his back pocket and just patted himself to find it gone.

He blamed his defence but nobody in particular for the goals which had continued to fall like manna into Clare's lap after the break when Limerick gave up two in the space of three minutes.

"We held them fairly well in the first half and then they got two goals, which I thought were against the run of play. Then they got two more goals in the second half that I also thought were against the run of play, but that's the way things go. They deserved their victory and I wish them the best of luck in the Munster final."

Richie was sore that Limerick hadn't been awarded a penalty late on when Brendan Bugler was given a straight red for a foul on Niall Moran while play was stopped for a free.

Just as Richie steps back into the shadows and goes to chart a course through the murk of the qualifiers, Mike McNamara steps forward once again.

The drill sergeant from the 1990s has evolved into a more rounded figure and by stitching together two wins on the trot has brought a little of the good times back to Clare hurling.

"It's just like we said already and we said since we started - our aim and our ambition is to put Clare back as one of the strong hurling counties.

"There's no good codding ourselves and going through meaningless qualifiers and finishing up in Croke Park without a challenge. The challenges are there and we have to put our best foot forward and meet the challenges.

"On the day we got the breaks, we got the goals at vital times and that stood to us, certainly in the last 10 minutes. We had that match fitness and that edge in the last 10 minutes, I thought."

So it went. Clare have momentum or what American election analysts used to call Big Mo.

Limerick have to review their campaign strategy.