Media storms sharpen Daly's hunger for play

All week long, Anthony Daly has traded in good wishes and Clare jerseys with customers in his sports store. After all the talk and dried ink, Daly is just looking to play again. In the space of a few weeks, he has seen his team painted as gangsters with hurleys, ruthless cynics. And it genuinely leaves him baffled.

"There has been controversy but I would like to think that we still have plenty of fans across the country. I don't know, that Munster final (the replay), some of the things that were written afterwards left me thinking, `where have these guys been?' Did they ever see a hurling match before?

"Some of it was just over the top, as if we decided in the dressing-room before the game to go out and start rowing with Waterford. I sometimes wonder if Waterford had happened to win the game by three or four points, would there have been the same outcry?"

Almost three years have passed since Clare toppled Offaly with a late, irresistible rush in the All-Ireland final and the atmosphere going into Sunday's game could scarcely be more different.

But Clare were fresh then, easily sketched as wide-eyed darlings. They weren't supposed to hang around for so long. So are they being fairly represented now?

"I honestly do feel we have got a bit of a raw deal, but the fact that we have been winning a bit since 1995 is the over-riding element in the change in attitude towards us.

"Sometimes you see a team win an All-Ireland and they fade again. That hasn't happened with us and I admit I am sometimes surprised that we have kept the hunger."

Often, he looks to their earlysummer defeat by Limerick in 1996 as the reason. "That may have been a blessing in disguise. It made us all go away and have a think about what we wanted. When you spend winters running up hills and what not and go on to win an All-Ireland, you aren't going to revert to giving the same effort and then losing, not by choice.

"A lot of the lads were very young in 1995. I was about the third eldest at 25. So the likes of Jamesie (O'Connor) and Brian Lohan, if they were going to keep at this, it was obvious they would want to win."

Sunday is being treated with caution. While Ger Loughnane spins a maelstrom across the nation's sports pages, the Clare player's minds dwell solely on their markers.

"It's a dangerous game for us and we recognise that. All the recent controversy has given Offaly a chance to take a back seat. They have about 11 of the lads who won the All-Ireland in 1994 and we know they are crafty, excellent at closing down spaces.

"I honestly think it will be tough game, a lot of hard, fair tackles and it will be close. I believe either side will do well to come out with a two-point win."

And Clare are determined to keep playing their own game. "If we are to win this, it will require a real Clare effort, 70 minutes' concentration, just running, blocking, hooking, real intensity. That's our style and teams have found it hard to cope with. If we can produce that, hopefully we can go on to the All-Ireland."

This rounding on their county had galvanised the Clare people. But has this summer been as enjoyable as the others?

"Enjoyable is probably a funny word to use about inter-county hurling now, the pressure being so enormous. But it has. Everyone here is spurring us on.

"I suppose, after the 1995 Munster final, loads of our supporters said that they didn't care what happened after that, to see that win was enough. But the All-Irelands have been welcome. Yet I sometimes wonder, if we hadn't won Munster in 1995 where would we be now?"