Positive McCarthy lauds Rebels’ rally

HE won’t be 20 until October, but Joe Canning has the maturity to match his undoubted skills.

“It was a great win and a good start to my career to be involved in such a match,” he commented. “It’s a lot faster than I’m used to — a lot different to the club championship and before that minor and U21. It’s all right in training but not the same as in a match. So, it was good to get the first game out of the way.”

Like manager Ger Loughnane, he was impressed by Cork’s second half-recover. “I don’t know if we slackened off or not. We fought hard and Cork got a lot of scores out the field. They’re known for their half-back and midfield getting points from long-range. That was what happened today.”

The Galway boss expressed the view that the competitive nature of the game would stand to them in Sunday’s final against Tipperary. He was also loud in his praise of Cork, commenting: “We found out that they will be a force in the Munster championship this year, because they are some team.

“You could not have asked for a better examination. I thought they were magnificent, in their support play, in the physicality they had, in the way they kept taking points even though they were 10 or 11 down. They kept narrowing the gap.

“We did play very good hurling in the first half, but we ran out of steam completely in the last 20 minutes. But that’s not fitness, that’s a lack of games like that. Cork have played six in a row, games of high intensity and it showed. We didn’t have a game of any intensity like that since August.

“It showed how much work we have to do and it also shows the quality and the potential we have.”

Conceding a lead of almost five goals isn’t usually designed to put a manager in good humour, but Gerald McCarthy could reflect on a second-half rally that put Cork in a position to snatch an unlikely victory.

“Fourteen points down at half-time was obviously a very disappointing position,” said McCarthy.

“We’d done reasonably well up to about the 25th minute of the first half. But we lost a bit of discipline and control. The key thing was the ball that was moved infield, the 21-metre free. That sapped the good out of us, it was just what we didn’t need.”

That free — goaled by Ger Farragher — left Cork a mountain to climb in the second half, said McCarthy. “But in fairness, we almost climbed it. We couldn’t have asked for any more from the players — at half-time we asked them to go out and produce a good second half with a view to the championship ahead, and that’s what they did.”

Did half-time in the Cork dressing room see some harsh words spoken in order to produce that improvement?

“Not so much harsh as a few truthful things,” said McCarthy. “We lost our discipline a little bit by mouthing to the referee, but having said that, the only two openings we appeared to have in the second half for goals were whistled back for frees, which disadvantaged us really.”

Other positives included the return to action of Ronan Curran. Though Cork have used the league to blood new players, there was concern about the slowness of their star centre-back’s return to inter-county action, but he was back on form yesterday. “Ronan had a superb game,” said McCarthy. “He gave an exhibition of half-back play and it was as if he’d never been away. With some more of the injured players we’ve quite a few in to contest for places. When they’re back and fully fit we’ll be rolling again.”

Cork’s next competitive game is on June 8 against Tipperary in the Munster championship, but the panel fly to La Manga in Spain for a training break on April 21.