Clare selector Liam McHale sees Sunday's McGrath Cup clash with Cork in Pairc Ui Chaoimh as ideal preparation for the National League.

"It's great for a Division 4 team like Clare to be playing Cork next Sunday. No matter what team Cork put out, it's a good team. It's a build-up now for the Waterford game (in the first round of the National League)," the former Mayo midfielder said.

McHale expressed contentment with the Banner County's 0-18 to 1-7 victory over UL last weekend.

"It's early days and we haven't done a lot of ball work. What I was happy about was there was a maturity to them. Maturity in that Gary (Brennan) came out from full forward and caught a ball or two. We didn't tell him to do that, but that's what we've been working on for the last few years.

"He's only 23 years of age but said 'it's time I came out here and did something'. He got us up the field and we got a score or two to settle us after their goal.

"We're three years at it now and we'd be expecting that. We're a little bit disappointed that we had a lot of goal chances that we didn't finish. We're very good at that normally, but against we have to work on that." Tweet

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