Patrick Kelly: They say time is a great healer, this Cork defeat will take at least a winter

It doesn’t feel as if Cork have any choice but to flood next year’s team with younger players and look for a new identity

TOUGH TO TAKE: Waking up the morning after receiving a hammering by our arch-rivals Kerry is the stuff of nightmares — as Ian Maguire and his Cork team-mates will know well today. Picture: Inpho/Brian Reilly-Troy

After a defeat like the one suffered in Fitzgerald Stadium, I always begin by putting myself in the Cork players’ shoes. Waking up this morning after being on the receiving end of a 22-point hammering to arch-rivals Kerry is the stuff of nightmares.

Following All-Ireland or Munster final defeats to Kerry I always craved the sanctuary of my team-mates that evening and the next day. The Monday morning remedy for players was always to find a quiet spot and let the post-mortems be overtaken by a bit of craic and merriment as the day ambled along. The embarrassment and hurt of such defeats is raw. As Éamonn Fitzmaurice said in this paper on Saturday, your defence mechanism after season-ending defeats is to avoid unnecessary encounters and to bury yourself away for days if not weeks. For Cork players, the best tonic now is to get back out with their clubs as quickly as possible.