Wexford boss Darragh Egan said he “ran out of bodies” as Clare swamped his side in the last quarter of the All-Ireland quarter-final.
Leading by six points with 10 minutes to go, Egan used four subs from there to the finish as Clare amassed more than 40% of their tally in that period.
He had used his other available substitution much earlier than he would have liked with Rory O’Connor, their best player all season, forced off through injury in the 14th minute.
“We ran out of bodies there for a finish,” said Egan. “I thought the two Recks (Damien and Shane) were absolutely outstanding.
“Shane Reck, who was after having a 16-week hamstring week injury, he did an unbelievable job on Tony Kelly, as he always does. He is a great player.
“The two boys, we couldn't get them off the pitch quick enough, it was that type of game. When the two boys went off, a few holes started appearing in our defence.
“But to be fair to Clare, they started to up it through the gears and they started to come at us in waves from their half-back line and midfield, all credit to them for how they finished the game.”
Reflecting on O’Connor’s injury, Egan said: “He is a brilliant player, looks like a significant enough injury. He'll have a scan over the next few days, so hopefully for Rory's sake he will be ok for the club championship.
“He has been top class for us all year and he was a big loss for us today because he did look lively and looked like he was going to do damage down that far wing.”
Egan was reasonably positive when summing up Wexford’s season but felt that they could have left more of an imprint on the Championship.
“We had a 16-game run this year and we only lost three games. There's not too many counties that can say that.
“But ultimately we finished the year with no silverware. It was on us that we weren't in the Leinster final, that was a Leinster title that we could have competed for properly. So that one was on us.
“Again, today we're bitterly disappointed we didn't get over the line because we came here thinking we were going to beat Clare today and we were very confident we were going to beat them.
“Unfortunately a few things didn't go our way and that's not the way it panned out.”
Having come from Liam Sheedy’s management team in his native Tipperary to succeed Davy Fitzgerald, Egan said the season was “unbelievably enjoyable”.
“It's such an experience. I've had the luxury of watching it from a close enough seat with Liam Sheedy over the last three years but when you get into the melting pot of it there's some amount of work in it. It was unbelievably enjoyable.
“Now I will say, the group we have they are just immense. They're really, really great fellas. We blooded a few players into that, we brought on a lot of our younger lads. We've 12 under-20s in our 41-man panel and it's now all about development.
“Development starts today for them. They need to be ready for when we go back training in December. There's no point in only starting in the winter. They need to get ready now.
“Hugely enjoyable experience. There's lots to it. It's something I'm going to have to focus on over the next few months because when I get these boys back in December I want to have a right cut off 2023.”
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