Fear of failure to drive Clare past the challenge of Laois

It would be incorrect to say that the good of Clare’s win over Waterford evaporated during the slightly chaotic defeat by Cork in the Munster semi-final, but it’s left Davy Fitzgerald’s (right) team needing to put in a major qualifier shift to maintain progress on last year.

This is the best draw they could have got in the circumstances but the same is true of Laois whose determined eye balling of Galway in the Leinster semi-final threatened embarrassment and worse for the champions for most of the match.

The potential problem for Laois is that whereas they were in a good rhythm for the Galway match and their opponents hadn’t hurled competitively for two months, Clare have the fate of their season riding on this and will be desperate for progress.

There is still a concern over John Conlon after the concussion in the Munster semi-final but otherwise Clare are at full strength. They will need to be economical with scoring chances and Laois played a sweeper against Galway and presumably will again so it will be competitive. But Clare did create chances against Cork and have the ability plus – at this critical juncture of their season – the fear to make it to the next round.