Rebel manager Hayes hails character of his charges

Cork U21 manager Séan Hayes praised the attitude of his players during the second half of this Munster quarter-final triumph in Tralee last night.

The visitors had dominated the opening period, but two Kerry goals against the run of play had the home outfit three in front at the break.

“The goals were killer blows, but when you win at the end of a game like that it is good for you, it shows the character you have,” said Hayes.

“We are telling these lads they have character and I think they showed that in the second-half. Even though we were frustrated at half-time, it was a great performance by us in the second-half.

“To me we were the better side in that first-half, but coming into your first championship match is always hard and it does take time for lads to get up to the pace of the game. In the first-half it did take us a while to get up to that pace, but we talked about it at half-time, we knew we were a good team and in the second-half we showed how good we are.”

Alan Cadogan earned a late call-up for the injured Cathal Vaughan and Hayes singled out the Douglas forward, the contributor of five points, for particular praise.

“In fairness to Alan, he has been under fierce pressure to come out to training. He is involved with Cork, was involved with the Fitzgibbon team.

“We have been working at this since last year and he hasn’t been there, but he understands that. We spoke to him and said he would play some part and he did and I am delighted for him. He gives it everything for every code and what he did tonight was fantastic.”

Kerry selector Harry O’Neill was disappointed by the failure of the home side to drive on following the two first-half majors.

“We were three points up at half-time and didn’t push on,” he sighed.

“We were living off scraps though and it was going to take a major effort in the second-half to keep that going and you could see the guys who were really pushing hard that when they started to tire in the final ten minutes the whole thing kind of fell apart.

“Going against the top teams in the first round of the championship is always tough. Some of the things that was going on in the challenge games probably came home to roost there tonight. We fell short, physically we were not strong enough. We knew their half-back line would be the platform and that Alan Cadogan and Dan MacEoin would be the go-to men. That was the case and we still could not counter it.”