Counihan: time to reflect on our season
Twenty four hours may have passed since the halting of Cork’s football summer, yet for Counihan, the pain of defeat was still being keenly felt yesterday.
Kerry had triumphed once more in a showdown with their Munster rivals and despite Cork’s heroic second-half revival, the bald statistic of the result meant it was Kerry who will participate in the All-Ireland final against Tyrone in three weeks’ time.
Counihan believes it is now appropriate for him and his players to take time to reflect before the commencement of the 2009 season.
“Now you should take some time out to think about everything and that’s what I’m going to do,” said Counihan.
“I’m not going to be making any big decisions until I’ve had time to reflect on it all. And that’s the same for the players too. After a defeat like that, everyone should take some time out away from the whole thing. Have a think about it and we’ll look at it at a later stage.
“Obviously it goes without saying that there is just massive disappointment after Sunday. We were so close and yet so far away at the final whistle.
“I think the fact that we were so in the game with a few minutes to go, makes it a lot harder to take.
“If you’d been beaten by seven or eight points, you’d say that you had no chance of getting a victory. But after working so hard in the second half to get back into it, when we finally got level, we had a great chance to win the match.
“The end result then is very tough to take. I’m still a bit dazed from the whole thing. I’m trying to push it away really then think about it. The time for trying to rationalise it is later on.”
Having been parachuted into the job last spring after a turbulent winter for the county’s footballers, Counihan’s debut season has been a productive and progressive one. Yet he was eager to apportion huge credit to the performance of his players since he assumed the managerial responsibility.
“They are an exceptional bunch of guys and I couldn’t have asked for more from them since I became involved this year,” said Counihan.
“These guys have been through a lot over the last few years and have suffered big disappointments.
“This is another pretty hard one for them to take. It’s been a quite demanding job but working with them has been great. I found the campaign very enjoyable up until the final few minutes on Sunday.”
Reflecting on Sunday’s game, Counihan believed Cork’s opening to the game was not as sluggish as their early performance in the drawn match a week before. Cork were forced into a rallying position as Kerry manufactured a handsome early lead to go eight points ahead approaching half-time.
Even after Daniel Goulding’s superb goal for the Rebels before the interval, Kerry resumed in the second half to sprint nine points clear once more.
Ultimately that lead proved unassailable, yet Counihan felt that Cork’s failure to convert their early chances in the game put them at a disadvantage.
“I don’t think we were slow off the blocks, to be honest. That has been a problem for us this year in games but on Sunday I felt we got enough ball early on.
“It was more a case of not being able to take the opportunities that came our way.
“We created chances for points but didn’t convert them into scores. That proved costly. Then when we really started to play, it was late in the game. That’s been the way with us all year. The football we played in the second half was of a very high standard but unfortunately it couldn’t get us the win.”
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