Cork recharged after Munster final ‘eye-opener’

ASKING Paul Kerrigan to guide you through exactly went wrong in this month’s Munster final isn’t all that torturous for him.

The hard words have already been exchanged in the Cork camp. What was needed to be said about going nine points behind before seeing their fightback ultimately come up short has already been said.

Kerrigan will tell it like it is.

“The first-half was unacceptable. That’s not the way All-Ireland champions are supposed to play.

“I think Kerry were a lot hungrier, their intensity was higher and they were in our faces.

“We were making basic mistakes and our work-rate wasn’t what it should have been. We were very disappointed.

“We’ve ironed out a few issues from it but it’s not the end of the world.

“We’re back in it again and the best thing from that is that we can learn and hope to show it against Down.”

After the league final win over Dublin, where they had fallen behind by eight points before staging a stunning comeback, Kerrigan spoke of how confident Cork are of winning games when things look to be going against them

But the Nemo Rangers man appreciates they can’t expect to turn around big deficits all of the time.

“It was an eye-opener. You can’t keep giving teams eight-point leads. That’s bull****. There’s only so long that can work, especially against teams like Kerry and Down. It was a humbling experience as well as much as we try to detach ourselves from the scoreboard. We want to just play the game. I didn’t know how much we were down at half-time, I just knew it was high.

“You just try to keep the points going over and if there’s a goal chance take it. The Dublin game, we got the breaks, had the momentum and pushed on but we didn’t have that in the Kerry game.”

As well as the Cork players, Conor Counihan has come in for criticism following the Munster final. But Kerrigan rests the responsibility for the defeat on the men who crossed the whitewash, not the man who patrolled it.

“Tactics go out the window when it comes to hunger and work-rate. You can have all the tactics in the world but when we crossed the line they had more of an appetite than us. We can only blame ourselves. Conor’s like all the players — you live and learn. If you don’t learn from your mistakes you’re not going to get anywhere. I’m sure Conor learned a few things about our own players and about tactics. It’s on all of us, really, not Conor.”

Of course, Cork’s task of recovering from Killarney and beginning the real defence of their All-Ireland title with a bang against Down today has been made that more difficult by the loss of Ciarán Sheehan to a cruciate injury.

Following Colm O’Neill’s same problem earlier in the year, more responsibility has been heaped on Kerrigan and his fellow forwards. “They’re two fantastic players, two of the most exciting forwards in the county, but it’s up to other fellas to step up now. We can’t continue to rely on Daniel (Goulding) and Donncha (O’Connor) to do all the scoring. It’s up to us as well as the other lads who might have come on against Kerry to take it on now. If they want to prove how good they are now is the time.”

Kerrigan himself was dogged with setbacks earlier in the year. Nemo’s club exploits put more of a load on him and both his hamstrings have come in for punishment. Before the league final, he tweaked one and had to come off early in the game. He might have started against Clare in the Munster opener but hurt the other one and didn’t want to have to be brought off early again.

But just as things look a lot more promising for him career-wise as he’s been on a graduate programme with German logistic giants DB Schenker since the day after the Clare game, so too has his fitness improved.

“They (the hamstrings) have got a lot stronger and I’ve no problems since, touch wood. Sometimes fellas come back from injuries even fresher and I feel great, to be honest.”

He and his team-mates’ morale is all the better since the draw was made and they had an idea of who they’d be facing. The feeling in the camp was it was always destined to be Down. “Deep down, you always knew they were always going to come through,” says Kerrigan. “They gave us a great game in the league so we’re expecting another one.”