Walsh: Cats clash will tell us if we’re still a force

DENIS WALSH says the All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny on Sunday week will reveal if his Cork charges are still a force to be reckoned with in the hurling world.

“We are in an All-Ireland semi-final, exactly where we want to be,” remarked Rebels’ manager Walsh after his side’s nine-point victory over Antrim at Croke Park.

“It is a huge challenge. It is a once off as far as we are concerned. I just said to the lads this is where we want to be. Cork and Kilkenny go back as long as the GAA is going. The traditionalists and purists will say this is exactly the game ‘I want to see’.

“People will say we know exactly how good Kilkenny are. The other question is: How good actually are Cork or are they below the required level? Well, we are going to find that out. That is what my players are focused on and what I am focused on. We are going to find out in two weeks time.”

And Walsh is heartened by the fact key players Seán Óg O hAilpín, Jerry O’Connor and Shane O’Neill, who missed yesterday’s game because of injury, are likely to be in the selection frame for the clash.

“Jerry and Seán Óg will be able to train by midweek,” he pointed out. “Shane O’Neill will be another few days, maybe the weekend.”

Walsh said it was a bonus having just a one-week turn-around following the disappointment of the loss after extra-time in last Sunday’s Munster final replay against Waterford.

“If we had three weeks coming into this game we might have been suffering from a little complacency,” he explained.

“The that we played two tough games over the last two weeks meant that we knew that we would be a bit physically tired and mentally tired, so we just trained once this week to give fellas a chance.

“It was very, very warm out there and the game was physical. We got some very good scores, but we lacked maybe that bit of intensity to keep pushing and pushing. We felt under a little bit of pressure to produce good hurling and get scores.’’

Yesterday, Walsh was pleased that his side converted a reasonable number of their scoring chances. “From our own point of view the last day against Waterford we created 40 chances in the replay and only took 14 of them,” he recalled.

“That was frustrating really from our point of view that maybe we were being labelled a long-ball team from the point of view that maybe we got sucked into that kind of a scenario. We wanted to put a bit of pressure today on them to move the ball around a bit.”

Cork captain Kieran ‘Fraggie’ Murphy said he was delighted with the way his side got back on track in the wake of the defeat by Waterford. “It’s hard for the couple of days afterwards because you’re just so disappointed at losing a Munster final because at the start of the year all you want to be doing is win a Munster final,” he remarked. “But then you’re coming up to Croke Park, where you want to play, there’s a bit of excitement coming back into it and you’re focused again. That was probably a big help that we had a good tough game coming up to Croke Park. When you come up to Croke Park, especially after two tremendously hard physical games in a Munster final, it is very tough because you have such a short space of time to get your body right.

“It is very tough, then you’re coming up playing a youthful Antrim team who are non stop running all over the place and very physical. They were well up for the game. Whenever you’re playing an All-Ireland quarter-final on the back of two tough games it’s always going to be hard.”