Anthony Daly: Brutal honesty the only way Cork can rehabilitate

The Rebels have had just a week to get over a beatdown but All-Ireland hopes remain realistic.

REBEL YELL: Cork supporters react during the game in Limerick last week. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

When I was Dublin manager in 2010, we got a hiding from Kilkenny in the Leinster semi-final but the trimming we got from Brian Cody’s side in the following year’s Leinster final was even harder to take. Dublin had won the 2011 league. We appeared to have real momentum and confidence behind us. And then Kilkenny arrived into Croke Park and blew all of that optimism to smithereens.

The Dubs were playing Limerick in an All-Ireland quarter two weeks later so we tried to look at it in context of where we were positioned at the time in comparison to Kilkenny. They had just been stopped from completing the five-in-a-row in 2010. Cody’s men were on a serious revenge mission in 2011. We just accepted that Kilkenny were ahead of us - but that there was plenty of scope there for us to catch up.