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.