Calum Lyons’s dismissal for a second yellow card late in the first half proved the turning point
They continued to play with a sweeper in the second half too, which seemed like lunacy when they desperately needed scores. Instead they gifted Clare two spare men in the backfield, from where they were able to build attacks and find a pass with comfort and ease.
In a sense, Waterford seemed hell-bent on self-sabotage. In the first half their shooting and sometimes their shot selection were destructively poor and they finished the half with 12 wides, three times as many as Clare. They didn’t have any problem creating shooting chances but on a day when they had so little margin for error they needed to be absolutely clinical.
Scores, though, were hard to come by. Jamie Barron wasted an early goalscoring chance when he swiped on a ground shot that missed by miles, and with their championship survival on the line, Waterford couldn’t generate the momentum that early scores would have given them. Dessie Hutchinson didn’t have his first shot at the target until first-half stoppage-time and that missed too.
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