O’Connor not surprised by quality of Rebels’ display
“If we were to believe everything that was being written and said about Cork in the lead-up to the game the result was a foregone conclusion.
“We expected a ferocious battle from Cork, and we got it. We know from experience that you can never write them off, and it’s all to play for next Sunday. Looking back on the game, we missed a couple of chances to kill them off when we were a point in front. There were at least three frees missed and had we converted two of them, I doubt if Cork would have pulled it back. We only went one point ahead and that was never going to be enough in a game as tight at that.
“Having said that, on the balance of play, Cork deserved at least a draw out of the game. They can consider themselves a trifle unlucky not have snatched it at the death but it would have been hard on either side had there been a winner.”
O’Connor was not in a position to see what caused Anthony Lynch to be sent off, but was at a complete loss as to why Kerry’s Kieran Donaghy was similarly dismissed.
“I had said to the lads at half-time that given the way the referee was doing his job, he would go out of his way to even things up in the second half and that’s exactly what he did. It invariably happens that a player is sent off in such a situation for the most frivolous of reasons, because from where I was I could see no valid reason for sending Kieran off.”
The Kerry coach accepted that his side struggled to win any breaking ball around the middle of the field for most of the match, something he will be looking at in the lead-up to next Sunday’s replay in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
“We played second fiddle in that department all afternoon and consequently there was very little link-up play between our half backs, midfield and half forwards. It’s been a problem for us and it manifested itself again. It is a worry.
“To be fair to our inside forwards we had the beating of the Cork defence but couldn’t get enough quality ball in to them. That, too, is a worry. Overall we are not too disappointed and if we are good enough the replay will certainly help us.”
Around the field there were some tremendous individual battles, Graham Canty on Colm Cooper being one and Ger Spillane — who won the man of the match award — on Declan O’Sullivan another, and O’Connor acknowledged that they added greatly to the occasion.
“I expected Cork to do what they did. It was good tactics and to be fair to all four players they probably broke even over the 70 minutes. It was hard for our lads to be listening all week to how poor Cork are, and the lads themselves knew they were going to get a desperate battle and we did.”
O’Connor said he was impressed by the Cork newcomers. “They were very fit and very committed but then it’s easy to do well in a game where you are written off.
“Maybe the shoe will be on the other foot next week because the punters will give Cork a great chance in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. It will be interesting to see how Cork will react when they are the favourites.”
O’Connor said the introduction of Darren O’Sullivan was important.
“But we failed to get enough ball into him. He caused the Cork defence a lot of problems.
“Looking ahead to the replay, we won’t be making radical changes, but we couldn’t be happy at our failure to win our share of the breaking ball, particularly in the last 15 minutes.
“Overall Cork were that bit hungrier than we were but it was easy for them as they had been completely written off both inside and outside their own county and had a point to prove.”
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