JBM: Kilkenny’s ability to win breaking ball superior
“They’ve had great success over the last few years, they’ve had great underage success and we haven’t, and their play in the second-half was much better than us.
“I think the amount of breaking ball we lost was unbelievable. Their ability to win the ball cleanly, or to win breaking ball if it went to the ground was far superior to ours on the night.”
The Cork boss said there was plenty of room for improvement from his side.
“We’re always under pressure, and it doesn’t get any easier in this division, playing Clare here on Saturday night. We’d need to improve on our performance.
“They’ve (players) been training very well and nobody goes out to play poorly. We came up against Kilkenny, a very good team and hard to beat, and I’m just disappointed. I thought we had a good chance to win tonight.
“There’s room for improvement all over the field. I’d say every one of our players, from one to 15, could do better.”
Kilkenny boss Brian Cody says his side will still have to be mindful of avoiding relegation, despite the opening round victory.
“The reality is that that’s still there too, last year I think we lost our first two games and we won the league.
“This is one game down, two points won and delighted to have them, but we have tough games ahead, starting with Dublin on Sunday. We’ll continue to be competitive, but it’s going to be a battle.
“It (the league) is very competitive and the reality is that a good team will be relegated. Each team in there is a very strong team in 1A, a potential All-Ireland winner, not to mention a league winner.
“And we’re no different to the rest of them.”
Cody was happy with his side’s first touch, given their limited game time.
“Match practice does matter, you’d like to have it and we didn’t. But we had three or four hurling sessions ourselves and we have our own training pitch where we could play under lights as well in Dunmore.
“That’s been a big advantage. The touch was good and the score-taking was good.”
His side’s effort and application was encouraging, he said: “They moved it on well, they got into it strong and opened up a gap, but they (Cork) pegged it back quickly.
“It’s not just the 15 minutes after half-time, you have to do the right things and work your way through the game, it has to be every minute of the game. And that was encouraging.
“It’s a good win, there’s no point in pretending it’s not. The challenge for us now is to push it forward.
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