Curran denies that discipline furore blurred Cork focus

BRUISED but unbowed, Cork centre-back Ronan Curran fielded the first, obvious question as though it were another Clinton Hennessy puck-out: surely the discipline furore over the last three weeks had blurred the focus for Cork?

“I don’t think so, really. I just think this was another one of those games with Waterford – and we’ve had a few in the past – where anything can happen.”

And anything did. Cork shipped four goals in the first half – two in the last two minutes. Traditionally the strongest section of the side, the defence looked unsettled at times.

“Yeah, I think we were a small bit at sea in the first half defensively, we lost concentration a few times. We looked dangerous going forward, and in fairness to our forwards they did really well any time in the first half we put our foot on the gas. But one or two lapses in concentration cost us dearly.”

Curran took a positive out of the performances of Cork’s defensive newcomers, Anthony Nash, Shane O’Neill and Kevin Hartnett.

“It’s a massive step up and the three lads did really well coming in, but it was just unfortunate that we came up against a very good Waterford team today. We couldn’t do much about it – it wasn’t about the fellas who came in, everyone made mistakes in the first half that led to goals, but I thought we did really well after half-time.”

Now it’s the long and winding road. Curran acknowledged that in the recent past it’s been a rewarding journey for Cork.

“It’s a different road, but we’ve done it before. In 2004 we went through the qualifiers and we ended up winning the All-Ireland. A lot of your preparation for the qualifiers has to do with recovery rather than hard training. We’ve done all the hard training so it’s just a matter of looking after ourselves from now on. There’s going to be club games, but I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. You never know, we might come out at the other end of the qualifiers a bit better.”

Cork manager Gerald McCarthy said it was a magnificent hurling match. “Coming up here we felt we were in with a great chance of winning it and as it turned out, came very close to doing so. Only a puck of a ball separated the teams at the finish and only the thickness of the crossbar denied us a replay.

“We are extremely proud of our lads. They battled to the very end. We did concede a couple of soft goals, but I’m not blaming anyone for that. You have to be pleased with the effort the lads made.

“Overall it was a brilliant game of hurling that ebbed and flowed. We had periods of dominance and so had Waterford.”

“Some of the scores were magnificent efforts. Both sets of forwards had the ability to open up the defences with the result there were eight goals. We got three which is unusual for us but we conceded five and that would be a concern.

“A lot of our players were playing in their first Munster championship match. Obviously we were in dire straits going into the game without three of our best players, and that affected us badly, but the lads rose to the challengeand we are extremely proud of every one of them.

“I would like to congratulate Waterford on their victory. We’ll go back now and regroup. It’s going to be a long campaign with three games on the trot but we’ll be ready for that.”