Players from intercounty team suffered at the hands of The Blues (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
cast down
'team suffered at the hands of the blues' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'players from intercounty' is the wordplay.
'players' becomes 'cast' (I've seen this before).
'from' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'intercounty' becomes 'down' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'cast'+'down'='CAST DOWN'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cast down that I've seen before include "Gloomy" , "in need of encouragement" , "Sadden" , "result of fewer actors getting parts?" , "disheartened" .)