Downhearted Owens seeking home comforts

WATERFORD boss John Owens is hopeful for a home draw in the All-Ireland qualifiers as he seeks to pick his players up from the disappointment of yesterday’s heavy defeat in the Munster SFC against Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Owens admits it will be a difficult task to try to revive his squad after they succumbed to the All-Ireland champions by 18 points.

“A home draw is what we’ll really be looking for and hopefully we can get someone down to Dungarvan. Coming into the match, we knew it was going to be difficult, we’d have to bring a high performance to compete and when that didn’t materialise, we knew we were going to be on the end of something heavy. We’ll hope to get a good draw and a good run in the qualifiers we should be able to pick them up.”

Owens paid tribute to their opponents display and believes that Cork will be a major force in the remainder of this year’s championship.

“There are not too many teams that will do to us what they did there today. They fully deserved their win. They will be a lot of trouble to a lot of teams in the months ahead. They were exceptional and at times we weren’t at the races. It’s disappointing though. Our lads going in at half-time eight points down was not a bad position considering the way we had played. But the way they played in the second half we just couldn’t hold them. Our performance wasn’t up to what we would have hoped and they deserved to win.”

Owens revealed that Waterford had planned before the game to withdraw their wing-forwards to defence in an effort to combat Cork’s attacks but the quality of the opposition ultimately overwhelmed them.

“We had two wing-forwards coming back with the midfielders when they lost possession. That was what we were trying to do, we knew we couldn’t take a chance playing 15 against 15, but in the end that didn’t work either. When you get the run on a team and attack like they did, it was going to be very difficult for us to control them.

“That’s the way it turned out.”