Clare battle back to beat Cork at the Páirc

Clare kickstarted their Munster Senior Hurling challenge after a second-half turnaround secured their first ever championship victory in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, beating Cork 3-26 to 3-24.

Trailing by 0-14 to 0-12 at the break, Brian Lohan's side were blitzed by a 1-03 Cork surge on the restart as an immediate Patrick Horgan goal was bolstered by points for Seamus Harnedy, Declan Dalton and a Horgan ’65 after Shane Barrett’s shot was deflected at 1-17 to 0-13 by only the 38th minute.

Things appeared bleak for the Banner, especially after letting slip a nine-point cushion to Limerick last time out. However, they dug deep and were ignited by an excellent passing move involving John Conlon and Shane O’Donnell who centred to Mark Rodgers to find the net in the 43rd minute.

With momentum and the conditons behind them, David Reidy and Aidan McCarthy slashed the arrears to just the minimum on three occasions before the narrative turned decisively at the three-quarters mark.

It stemmed from a Mark Rodgers shot that was initially saved but in the aftermath Sean O’Donoghue’s robust third-man tackle on Shane O’Donnell saw the Inniscarra defender dismissed on a second yellow card while Aidan McCarthy regained full parity with the resultant free at 1-20 apiece.

Four minutes later, a numerically advantaged Clare hit the front in spectacular fashion for the first time in almost 30 minutes when Diarmuid Ryan played an excellent one-two with David Fitzgerald before offloaded to Shane O’Donnell to grab his side’s second goal.

Patrick Horgan kept Cork in touch only to be hit by a third sucker-punch goal entering the final ten minutes when Mark Rodgers teed up David Fitzgerald to cut in from the right and roof to the net at 3-23 to 1-23.

Fourte