Cork warned to expect ‘huge improvements’ from Kingdom

WITH hand on heart James Masters admitted that his last-ditch attempt to secure victory for Cork in yesterday’s highly dramatic Munster football final was right to be disallowed.

“I was falling when I took the kick. Next thing I noticed one umpire was waving a white flag while the other was signalling wide.

“From my own point of view, the ball was wide and the referee was right to disallow the score after his consultation with both umpires. It could have been a match winner but it would have been grossly unfair to Kerry because I knew that I had not succeeded in scoring,” said Masters who was Cork’s top scorer of the day with seven points.

“We gave it our all, and I think our display was best personified by the performance of our centre-back Ger Spillane. He went down with cramp midway through the second-half, picked himself up and proceeded to win the Man of the Match award.”

Masters felt that it suited Cork ideally to be rated as rank outsiders. “A lot of negative things were said and written about us following our game with Limerick. But people tend to forget Limerick are a quality team and have a few class players in their ranks.

“I think we proved the point on this occasion that we can mix it with the best when our attitude is right and our commitment is second to none.

“We will keep our heads down until next Sunday’s replay and hopefully then the chances we missed to win on this occasion will work out in our favour.

“Maybe in a week’s time the point I missed at the end will go over instead without any debate or discussion,” said one of the nice guys of Cork football.

Brian Sheehan of Kerry had contributed six of his side’s 10 points but missed a couple of frees that on another day he would have converted.

“It would have been nice had it been the winner but against Cork it’s never over until the final whistle.

“Today proved if proof was needed, that form in the semi-finals means absolutely nothing. When these counties line up against each other, no matter what the grade, you can expect a lively contest.

“Credit to Cork when they went a man down, they never allowed us to use the extra man, got bodies behind the ball and made it very difficult for us to get in a kick on goal. They also never allowed us to get the extra man on the ball which might have swung it for us.”

Asked if Kerry’s chance was now gone, the St Mary’s man said certainly not. “We will take the lessons from the game and you can expect to see a huge improvement in our play in the replay.”