Morgan: that display won’t throw Kerry off guard

CORK coach Billy Morgan expressed relief at qualifying for another Munster final, but didn’t need any reminding that this display would not be good enough to win back the title from Kerry in a month’s time.

“Someone said to me during the week it would be great if Cork scraped through against Limerick and throw Kerry off guard, but they are too long in the game to be fooled by who we played out there today,” he said.

“Personally I would have preferred to have played well and won, but I’ll take the win any day. I’m happy we are back in the final but I would be fooling myself and everyone else if I said I was happy with our performance, particularly in the first half.

“Limerick played it like the northern teams do in that first half by getting bodies behind the ball. That made it very difficult for us but we had expected that. We had pinpointed they would be like that and it’s very difficult and frustrating for players to cope with a blanket defence.

“Fortunately, we were within striking distance at half-time and the break afforded us the opportunity to change things around. Michael Prout coming on did very well.”

Morgan also agreed that a number of positional switches proved decisive.

“The switch of Anthony Lynch to wing-back gave us far greater penetration as he loves to go forward. We weren’t getting from our half back line attack-wise and he certainly improved that for us in the second half.

“Graham Canty was superb at full back. The debutants did very well, Alan Quirke handled the ball with confidence and his kick-outs were excellent. James Masters was again outstanding but we did put together some great passing moves which on another day might have come off for the other forwards as Kevin O’Sullivan, Donncha O’Connor and the others are all very good attackers on their day.

“Looking to the final, today’s performances by both ourselves and Kerry will count for nothing. The final will be a totally different match and it’s one I’m looking forward.”

Limerick coach Mickey O’Sullivan refused to criticise his players for their failure to score for 60 of the 70 minutes played.

“Naturally, it’s disappointing not to have scored more, but I prefer to take the positives rather than the negatives from the match,” he said.

“It wasn’t the massacre a lot of people thought it would be.

“Jason Stokes was a big loss to us around the middle of the field and Cork took control there in the second half.

“But there is still a lot of football to be played before this championship runs its course,” he said.