Clare and Wexford played out an exhilarating draw at the top of National Hurling League Division 2 on Sunday.
The Model County overcame a lame start to hit 2-19 to the Banner’s 1-22 in Ennis to see the sides in the two top spots in the Division end the day on with five points.
Ger O’Loughlin’s men came out of the traps faster as exciting young gun Darach Honan buried an early goal and captain Brian O’Connell led a strong stretch of scoring.
However, stalwart Diarmuid Lyng was one of the key figures as Colm Bonnar’s men fought their way back into the game. He, Rory Jacob and Tomas Waters all pointed before a goal from Jacob had the men from Leinster back within touching distance as they trailed by 1-14 to 1-10 at the break
Steven Banville, Andrew Shore and Colm Farrell continued to eat away at Clare’s lead after the break and when Rory Jacob rattled in his second goal of the game after great Banville set-up play the score was tied at 1-19 to 2-16.
Both sides bagged three more points with Wexford in fact on front before a late, late leveller.
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Antrim were somewhat surprisingly the victims of a ten-point loss at home to Laois as Niall Rigney’s men won 2-19 to 1-12 at Casement Park.
The loss was the Saffrons’ first of the year as Niall Foyle and Tommy Fitzgerald both raised the green flag on the way to giving the visitors a 2-7 to 0-7 half-time lead and Antrim had Liam Watson sent off.
Neil McManus pulled a goal back for Antrim in the second half but the 14 men were just second best on the day and the O’Moore County men racked off another number of scores to seal a comfortable win.
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The division’s third Sunday game saw Carlow win 3-11 to 3-9 away at Down.
Simon Walsh, Gareth Johnson and Conor O'Prey all scored goals as the Mourne County led by 3-6 to 1-5 at half-time but the home side failed to keep up that impressive rate of scoring and were punished by the Leinster men who move on to four points and into third place.