Buoyant Banner ready to make mark in All-Ireland series

After making life uncomfortable for Kerry in the Munster final and getting a strong support from their supporters at Cusack Park, Clare head into the All-Ireland series looking to cause an upset or two.

The Banner men fell to a seven-point defeat in Ennis, but largely went toe-to-toe with a below-par Kerry in the opening half, and kept plugging away when Jack O'Connor’s side appearing to pull away, with wing-back Ikem Ugwueru claiming the only goal of the game late on.

The defence stuck dutifully of keeping tabs on the vaunted Kerry attack, Darragh Bohannon and Brian McNamara excelled around the middle while in attack Emmet McMahon, Ciaran Downes and in particular Dermot Coughlan, caused all kinds of bother for the provincial kingpins.

While Kerry head into the group stages as first seeds, an unconvincing performance means questions remain surrounding their longer-termambitions.

Despite defeat, Clare arguably bounce into the last-16 with more of a pep in their step. Having narrowly missed out on promotion to Division 2 and improving on last year’s Munster final trimming, manager Mark Fitzgerald says it was a performance to be proud of.

"There were times we played good football, but there were times when we played silly stuff, with turnovers and taking wrong options," he told RTÉ Sport.

"That comes when you are playing against a team of Kerry’s calibre.

"We wanted to get as close to them as possible coming down the stretch, and that the crowd would push you on a bit. And the crowd were fantastic."

The Banner raised the only green flag of the afternoon in the closing stages, but midfielder McNamara surned a glorious opportunity right from the second-half throw-in to really test the Kingdom mettle.

"You just felt we needed a couple