JBM: We’ll regroup and try to find out what went wrong

Reflect, regroup and return stronger. That’s the challenge facing Cork manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy after Sunday’s drawn All-Ireland SHC final.

“I wouldn’t say it’s gone from us at all,” he said leaving the DT Hotel yesterday.

“We didn’t play well yesterday in general. We were chasing the game from the start and we didn’t get into our stride as quickly as Clare. From that point of view, I certainly don’t think it’s lost. It’s there to be won the next day. There’s plenty of time to regroup and that is what we are going to do.”

Plenty for the Cork manager to work on also, a multiplicity of players performing well below par.

“Yeah, and we have to look now and see where we can strengthen, but as I said we didn’t play as well as we would have liked. But that is finals. They take on a life of their own. There are days when it doesn’t happen for you. It was a great game and our players played with fantastic spirit and they had to, to hang in there. And they hung in there. I was very, very proud of that.”

Many people afterwards criticised the decision of the referee to play on after Patrick Horgan stuck what looked like the match-winner for Cork in the first minute of injury-time. Not Jimmy Barry-Murphy.

“It was a fantastic score. Time was up, we thought, but that’s the way it goes. I’m not going to start carping now about that because as I said yesterday a couple of decisions went our way during the season that could have gone the other way and I think it would be bad grace now to moan about that. Referees in general tend to give a team one chance if they are a point down, don’t they, and that is what happened yesterday.”

Now it’s on to Saturday fortnight and a replay. Not a traditional day for an All-Ireland final, certainly a first for Cork and for Jimmy.

“It’s very unusual. I would have preferred a Sunday personally. An All-Ireland final should be on a Sunday but that is another decision that has been taken that we have no control over. These things are nothing to do with me, when a match is fixed as far as I’m concerned you get on with it.

“We’re going for a recovery session this morning, a pool session and then we’ll take a break for a couple of day, regroup after the weekend and start the whole process again. There was a general feeling that we could have played better overall, that we could have got into our stride earlier.

“That’s the main thing, it’s a case of trying to regroup and find out what went wrong. But there are plenty of positives from our point of view, there was great passion and great spirit I thought. We hung in there and we needed to.”

First there’s a bit of local housekeeping, the Cork championship.

“There will be one or two games going ahead, the rest of the games will be going back until after the final. There are two games that they have asked to play involving Darren McCarthy [Ballymartle v Blackrock] and Michael O’Sullivan [Youghal v Tracton]. Those games will go ahead next week and there will be a break for a fortnight after that again.”