Donal Moloney insists that Clare will bounce back from their defeat to Tipperary and defended his players after severe criticism of their display.
The Banner were handed a 13-point beating on their own patch by the All-Ireland favourites and The Sunday Game analysts were scathing in their assessment of the hosts' display.
Ken McGrath said Clare were "leaderless and clueless" and questioned the decision to play a sweeper with the breeze in the second half while Jackie Tyrrell commented that "It was like a good senior team against a bad junior team."
"It's very easy to pass high-level remarks like that," was Clare co-manager Moloney's response to RTÉ Sport.
"People are entitled to do so but we know the character of these men.
"We know these guys very well and they have shown tremendous character and tremendous leadership down through the years for Clare.
"We were trying to play the ball around and find our men in space rather than crowd it up. But we didn't have the platform in the middle third to put in the type of ball that we wanted and maybe that was down to Tipperary's work-rate in the second half.
"Large parts of the game we did a lot of good things but Tipperary were excellent."
'A good senior team against a bad junior team' - Jackie Tyrrell gives his assessment of Tipperary's win over Clare at Ennis #RTEGAA pic.twitter.com/h2FeJrlA1T
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) June 2, 2019
The defeat means Clare, Cork and Limerick are all on two points from two games with Tipperary guaranteed to advance and Waterford out of the running.
Moloney accepts that his side have little room for error left but pointed to the example of last year's All-Ireland champions, and their next opponents, Limerick in warning against too much doom and gloom.
"Teams have lost games in this round-robin before and come through," he said.
"Look at Limerick last year, they came here and lost by 11 points.
"From our perspective, there is still a lot to look forward to.
"I don't think it will be a difficult dressing-room to lift. These guys know a better performance is required.
