Ger Loughnane believes Clare have nothing to fear in today's Munster SHC semi-final against Tipperary. Tipp are raging hot favourites to advance to another provincial final against Waterford, but the Banner County's former double All-Ireland winning manager feels an upset could be on the cards. "I think Clare have hope against Tipperary. There have been many years when I have been a lot less optimistic than I am now," Loughnane said. "There is no reason why a team like Clare, who have good forwards, midfield and backs, can't be successful in an age where one team is way ahead of the pack, apart from Cork who, if they get their act together, can challenge Kilkenny. The rest of the pack are average. We are going through an age when the majority of the teams are mediocre. "During the week I saw Brian O'Connell and he looked in super shape for a Munster championship and if the rest are like him that can only be good." The RTE pundit added: "They have a great find with Brendan Bugler at centre-back and I think it's a huge shame that Gerry Quinn isn't playing, I mean if you had Brian O'Connell at full-back, Bugler at centre, Quinn at midfield, Tony Carmody at centre-forward, Nugent at full-forward that's a great centre, not too many teams in the country could match that besides Kilkenny. Who would you be afraid of? "I don't see Tipperary beyond the same level as everyone else. They are very inexperienced, they have a lot of young lads and they didn't even shine last year in the 21s. They were beaten by an average Kilkenny team, only one of whom will be near the Kilkenny senior team, so that just shows you how great they are. How great are the Tipp hurlers? "Tony Griffin, Tony Carmody all can hurl the Tipp lads off the field; Bugler can hurl the daylights out of Callinan. Because we are living in an era where we have a mediocre standard, we can be optimistic. I am very optimistic and I would ignore completely Clare's form in the league." Tweet

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