McCarthy refuses to throw in the towel

GERALD McCARTHY concedes that changes in the Cork hurling team are unavoidable down the road, but refuses to throw in the towel in the context of their competitiveness in the qualifier stages of the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

Pointing out that the management will re-assess the situation while the players are back with their clubs over the next two weeks, he commented: “we are confident that we have a panel of very good players. There’s a bit of hurling left in us yet.” Not surprisingly, he stood over the selection — questioned by some supporters in advance of the game and by a lot more after yesterday’s defeat, some of whom weren’t happy over the delay in making changes in the attack. Having expressed disappointment with their scoring return, he was asked if this meant he was (now) questioning the line-out he and his co-selectors chose.

“Not really. It didn’t really improve an awful lot even when we did make a lot of changes in the second-half. It’s very hard to judge and gauge that,” he stated. “That’s for people to make their own judgment on. We picked really what we felt the best 15 in form — and in training they were showing that. We certainly felt we had the best 15 on the team.”