Cork target improved intensity and workrate

Cork will need to increase their intensity significantly for tonight’s crucial Allianz HL Division 1A clash with Waterford, says selector Pat Ryan.

Following a comprehensive defeat at the hands of Galway last weekend in the league opener, the Leesiders will find themselves staring relegation in the face if they lose to the Deise this evening.

Ryan and the rest of the management are looking for Cork to ramp up their workrate and intensity.

“I think anyone watching the two games even on television last week, us and Galway and Waterford-Kilkenny, would have seen the difference in intensity.

“We brought no intensity to our game, and to an extent Galway didn’t bring the intensity you’d expect either. We’ll have to improve on that in a big way this evening.

“That was the main disappointment, that we didn’t bring that edge to it, particularly when Galway beat us in the championship last year.

“It was a first weekend away and so on, which isn’t making excuses. We didn’t bring it on the day.

“Waterford will bring that edge to it, though, and it’s up to us to match that or go beyond it, but that’s the plan.

“If that doesn’t happen we’ll be very disappointed.”

Cork coach Frank Flannery spent a season with Waterford a couple of years ago, but Ryan said he’s focused more on the Cork players he’s working with than discussing his old charges, who’ve become very familiar to students of the game from their successes last year.

“Obviously he knows them well - he has huge knowledge of every team around the country from being involved with so many clubs, and CIT - but Waterford have moved on as well. He’d have a huge knowledge of those players but we’ve seen so much of them in the last year or two that we’d all know them pretty well, and he’s concentrating on our fellas at the moment.

“The word coming out of Waterford is that they’ve trained very hard, done a lot of strength and conditioning. They’re a settled team now, and Derek (McGrath, manager) has been there a few years now, so he knows all the players inside out. The way they’re playing is changing and adapting all the time, and as Austin Gleeson said the last day, it’s all about workrate. They’re up and down the field and they work very hard for each other.

“In a wider context they have some very good players coming through at all levels, their underage scene is very good. We know it’s a huge test this evening but we’ll have to up the intensity level, we all know that.”

The division is so tight that one loss can have a team worrying about relegation, which Ryan acknowledges.

“Look, obviously avoiding relegation is something we want, but the main idea is to be ready to go against Tipperary in the championship, as Kieran (Kingston, Cork manager), has said.

“We know well that you have to have a couple of wins under your belt as well, to build confidence, and that’s why we’re giving fellas an opportunity. Against Galway we only had 21, 22 fit players to pick from and felt we should go with fellas who had some experience, who’d played in the Munster league.

“It’s an opportunity for fellas, and Dublin in two weeks’ time is another opportunity, but intensity and workrate have to improve. If we win on Saturday night, good, but if we lose and we’ve seen better intensity and workrate than we saw last weekend, then that’d be a start.” In terms of injuries, Seamus Harnedy, who pulled a hamstring in the Galway game, will not figure.

“We thought Seamus might be fit to play some part but that’s unlikely,” said Ryan. “Cathal Cormack is sick, and Conor O’Sullivan is still out with a groin problem.

“Paul Haughney is out with a hamstring. Mark Ellis played for CIT the last day but he’s just back from illness and injury, so we won’t really know how he’s fixed until today.”