Kissane ready for the long route to Croker redemption

CORK defender Paudie Kissane insists they are ready to embrace theAll-Ireland qualifiers after last Sunday’s Munster SFC semi-final defeat against Kerry, but admits that not discovering the identity of their opponents until six days beforehand will make their second round qualifier tie on July 10 a tricky proposition.

“It’ll probably be harder for the management especially as we can’tfocus on who we’ll be playing,’’ he said. “We won’t be able to work on certain things in training and it’ll be tricky not knowing where we’ll be playing. We could be going up the north or somewhere, which wouldn’t be easy. It’s just going to be a matter of adopting the right mind-set.

“You’ve no choice but to drive on now. We’ve been training for this for so long that we’re not going to give up now. With the group of players that are there and the management we have, we’re going to embrace the qualifiers and try to get back to Croke Park.

“We trained with the aim of winning and getting to the Munster final as we wanted to go the mostdirect route. Of course there are things that we need to improve on. But we’re still in the All-Ireland championship and that’s what it’s all about.”

The Cork players are set to return to their clubs this week with 16 members of the squad involved in countychampionship matches in both hurling and football on Friday and Saturday evenings. Kissane, who was speaking yesterday in Mallow at the official opening of a new ASD unit in the Convent Primary School, will line out for Clyda Rovers on Saturday night in the second round of the Evening Echo Cork PIFC against Newmarket.

He believes that time with their clubs will be beneficial to the Cork squad before they reconvene next weekend to commence preparations for the qualifiers.

“We’ll go back to our clubs now and we’ve some very important games there to get ready for. It’s always nice, win or lose to go back to the clubs. We can’t be thinking about last Sunday going back to our clubs and have to focus on giving a good performance.

“It’s the backdoor for us in Clyda on Saturday against Newmarket and that’s a huge game for us. We’ll get backtogether next week with Cork, refocus and get ready for the next match. We’ll come back the week after the time with the clubs and we’ll put in a lot of hard work before playing in the qualifiers.”