McCarthy wants charges to reach ‘another plateau’

GERALD McCARTHY and his co-selectors are smiling after seeing their team qualify for the Allianz NHL semi-final, but while the alarm bells aren’t yet sounding in Limerick, there is an acceptance that they need to get their act together fairly soon.

After yet another home defeat where they just didn’t perform in the second half, coach Gary Kirby readily admitted that the “door is open for up to eight players to come into the squad”. Understandably, McCarthy agreed that Cork’s progress was all the more satisfying considering that they had to forfeit four points at the start.

“We’re very happy. Starting out we knew we had it all to do to make the qualifying stages. In the last two weeks we went to Waterford and beat them in Walsh Park and now we have beaten Limerick here — never an easy thing to do,” he said.

And, while his team won easily enough at the end, he accepted that it required a significant improvement in the second half to make it happen.

“We were very disappointed with our first half performance. We were saying to the lads that we just didn’t play at all. There was very little in it. It appeared we were playing with a wind but quite honestly I don’t think we were because in the second half it seemed to favour us.”

McCarthy acknowledged the contribution of the newer members of the panel, saying that while it had been their intention from the start, a level of experimentation was actually “forced” on them by a series of injuries. They have been working from a group of 33, but yesterday was the third game in which they had only 23 fully fit players to draw from.

Looking ahead to next Sunday’s game with Galway, he agreed the rebels will have to raise their game if they are to have any chance of making it to the final.

“I saw their (Galway’s) display against Limerick and they just blew them away. When we look at our performance here today, we struggled for an awful lot of the game. We have another plateau to get up to and we are well aware of that.”

Gary Kirby, meanwhile, didn’t mince his words.

Limerick’s second half display was ‘‘a disaster,” he remarked. “There’s no point in saying otherwise. We did the same against Galway. We didn’t hurl in the second half, it’s something we have to look at.”

Conceding that an unfortunate collision between defenders Damien Reale and Mark O’Riordan (which forced both of them off after a short spell back on the field) upset their rhythm, he said that it shouldn’t have had that effect.

“We were pleased with the way they performed in the first half. They battled hard but the same work-rate wasn’t there in the second half and it concerned us that we only scored two points,” Kirby said.

“It’s only April and we only did our first training on the pitch last Thursday night. Definitely our first touch was very poor. Cork’s wasn’t great either but it was better than ours.

“I think we have a good panel, we definitely have to add to the squad. There are a few that are not up to championship level and it’s something we will be looking at in the next two weeks. Whether they are there or not we don’t know. We have looked around, but we haven’t seen much. In all I think we have a good 22/23 players which should be good enough for a championship squad.

“We need to knuckle down again and continue where we left off last year!”