No excuses from Counihan
Better team won, the poorer one didn’t.
However, that wasn’t going to be enough to explain away the All-Ireland champions scoring just one point for 35 minutes of football. Just 1-4 from play for the entire 70 minutes plus.
But it was after the interval where Cork’s shortcomings were brutally exposed.
“Certainly they won the breaking ball, which was crucial,” said Counihan of his team’s second-half performance.
“They seemed to have an extra bounce of energy. Some of that had to be expected — challengers versus champions. Some of it you can factor in. Maybe some of you guys [the media] didn’t make my job easier.”
Counihan was alluding to the manner in which Mayo had been written off and people were talking of a Kerry-Cork All-Ireland semi-final as if it were a given.
“I’m not making excuses in terms of our performance and our preparation. It was as good as it has ever been.
“If you kick them [Mayo] when they’re down often enough I’m sure they can come back to bite and there’s a lot of pride in those lads and fair play to them.”
When it was put to Counihan that Cork may have been suffering from a combination of complacency and fatigue he was more than keen to accentuate Mayo’s performance.
“You’re missing the factor in terms of the drive Mayo showed.
“Don’t take from that performance at all because they drove on and they drove at us. There were other days when people drove at us and we were able to sustain it. We weren’t able to sustain it today, to be fair to them.
“Whether you’re up or down people will find fault with you. From where I stand, if a group of people give you a significant effort over a long period of time the day they are down isn’t the day to be kicking them. That’s for others to do but I won’t be doing any of that. I’m certainly very proud of them.”
But had Cork been brought along on the ride and begun to believe in the hype? That Kerry had lived up to their part of the bargain earlier in the day and it was just a mere formality for Cork to confirm the date?
“I wouldn’t think so,” said Counihan. “We were probably a mature enough group to take every game as it comes. I looked at the Connacht final, one of the most atrocious days in terms of conditions and people expected quality football. It just doesn’t happen like that.
“Players are not machines. When they press the trigger it doesn’t work every day but if you get it out of them most days and they do their utmost, that’s all you can ask.”
Leading by two points at half-time, Counihan felt his team were in an okay position but only having been 1-4 to 0-1 to the good by the 16th minute.
“I felt we might regroup but scores didn’t come and we didn’t get enough ball up. When we did we lacked a bit of composure.
“To be fair to Mayo, they were the better team over the 70 minutes and hats off to them.”
Nicholas Murphy was named to start but it was the 61st minute before he eventually entered the fray. “What we got out of him is probably as much as we could get out of them,” insisted the Cork boss.
As for the future, Counihan, similar to last year, asked his players not to be too hasty in making up their minds about 2012. “Look, I don’t know what people’s opinions would be. I’d be suggesting for everybody involved to take time and not make any decision in the heat of the moment.”
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