Shields happy to avoid Kerry

Cork full-back Michael Shields is glad Kerry didn’t reach Sunday’s Division 1 final, as the game would have been overshadowed by their potential Munster semi-final.

Conor Counihan’s side are looking for their third consecutive league title from their fourth NFL final in as many years.

However, they know where their priorities lie and Shields believes it is an advantage that they don’t have to face their great rivals six weeks before their possible date in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in June.

“If we were to meet Kerry in a league final obviously both teams would be gunning for it and going out for the win,” he said.

“But at the end of the day both teams would want to win on June 10 more so than in the league final. That’s just the way it is.”

Irrespective of the performance and result against Mayo in Croke Park, Shields will be reluctant to read too much into either.

It’s a case of once bitten, twice shy for the St Finbarrs man after last year’s comeback victory over Dublin was proven to paper over some pretty gaping cracks. Counihan said as much at the start of this year’s league and the situation was exacerbated by further injuries to key forwards.

“We can’t hide from the fact we were missing Daniel Goulding, Ciaran Sheehan, probably the bigger names,” said Shields. “They’re fantastic forwards.

“We won the league in a canter. Dublin should have beaten us in the league final and it probably didn’t do us any good. That was probably the kick up the arse we needed, but we didn’t get it.

“In Killarney (in the Munster final), we were nine points down at half-time and we lost by a point or two. We could have easily won that game had John Miskella got a goal. When we came up against Mayo they beat us fair and square all over the pitch and we lost every battle on each line. I think it was a poor year in general for us.”

Indeed, it was Cork’s Sunday opponents who administered the killer blow in their quarter-final, suffocating the then All-Ireland champions into submission and restricting them to one point in the second-half.

“They shut us out all over the pitch,” recalled Shields. “We couldn’t score in the second-half. Their lads were either winning the ball or the ball was being boxed away.

“They had a very hard system to play against. They moved the ball fast. We had no answer to them on the day.”

Shields fancies Mayo are building up to the game with “super confidence” after beating Kerry on the back of a fine vein of form.

Cork are in a purple patch themselves and Shields puts it down to their “starting to move the ball a bit faster“.

At the same time, he doesn’t need to be told this has been Cork’s least impressive league campaign of the last three years — four wins from eight compared to six last year and 2010.

“Of the last three years, this year’s form has been mixed. We’ve had a few injured, we tried out a few new fellas and certain tactics.”

However, the extra generous qualification standards for the play-offs afforded them the chance to experiment in the league, with Aidan Walsh moving to the edge of the square.

“He definitely offers something in there,” reckoned Shields. “Donncha (O’Connor) is moving off him and Donncha always going to be looking for low ball. But the high ball is on for Aidan and he can win it. He’s proven that he can kick points too.”

Cork have also toyed with the idea of a sweeper system, which Shields indicates may be used as a back-up ploy. “I think there are teams out there who play certain systems and you’re going to have to counteract them.

“You see the way Donegal have brought in this mass defence and it’s something a lot of teams will have to counteract.

“A lot of the systems we played during the league... hopefully we can play our own style but there might be a case later in the year when we might have to use a plan B or go to a plan C.”