National Camogie League Div 1A Round 3 : Galway 1-14 – Clare 0-13
A difficult opening period proved the difference in Kilbeacanty as Clare suffered their second successive defeat in division 1A.
It was the tribeswomen who started the brightest on their home turf, with corner-back Shauna Healy & corner-forward Ailish O’Reilly firing over the opening scores.
Lorna McNamara finally opened Clare’s account on the tenth minute mark, before going on to split the posts twice more from placed balls, with the addition of a Muireann Scanlon point, levelling the sides at 0-04 apiece after 20 minutes of action.
However the physicality of the Galway side shone through in the remainder of the half, with midfielder Aoife Donoghue in particular playing a starring role, as the Tribeswomen would raid for 1-05 without reply in the final ten minutes of the half, with Shannon Corcoran raising the green flag on 25 minutes.
The Banner trailed by 1-09 to 0-04 at the interval and owed much thanks to the services of netminder, Doireann Murphy who produced a superb point-blank save to keep Clare in the fight.
Clare came out of the traps with new found gusto in the second period and immediately set about the task of chipping away at the Galway lead with contributions from Lorna McNamara and Clare Hehir leading the charge.
Clare would outscore their opponents by 0-09 to 0-04 in the second period and just three points separated the sides with nine minutes remaining in the contest, however the elusive goal would ultimately never come for the Banner women, as fittingly Aoife Donoghue provided Galway’s insurance score deep into additional time.
As it finished in Kilbeacanty on a full time score of Galway 1-14 – Clare 0-13.
John Carmody’s charges will be hoping to get their campaign back on track when they face Tipperary in round four in a fortnight’s time.