Freshness could now be a major bonus for Cork

In many ways, yesterday’s Cork-Kildare game began as you’d expect.

Cork started off raw and didn’t hit the high notes early on. They were sluggish in general play, but the significant thing was that they got goal opportunities, and when they did they slotted them.

And in fairness, for most of that first half they needed a bit of a cushion, because Kildare were overrunning them. Early on, when it was close and messy, there were a lot of handling errors on both sides, which didn’t surprise me, particularly with the lack of championship outings this year for Cork.