Pat Ryan expects Seamus Harnedy lay-off

Cork selector Pat Ryan was left ruing the injury sustained by Seamus Harnedy in yesterday’s defeat to Galway and fears the attacker will miss the game against Waterford next week.

“Seamus pulled his hamstring just before he got the goal. We were about to take him off, actually, when he got the goal. We got him off before it was too badly pulled, but it’s disappointing. Will he be right for next week? I wouldn’t think so, no. Patrick Cronin had to go off as well, he got a belt to the head and he’s got three or four stitches in that, but it’s not too bad. He’s not concussed or anything.”

Yesterday’s defeat doesn’t augur well for next week, given Waterford had the better of last year’s exchanges with Cork.

“It’s our first game at home and obviously we want to play well in that, but we took a lot of positives out of this game as well, though obviously the result was disappointing.

“I was delighted with the way our fellas came back into the game. With seven or eight minutes to go, we had two or three chances to bring the margin back to four points.

“We were happy with the way the subs played, the likes of Luke O’Farrell showed up well when he came on, and that can only be good for the panel, going forward.

“I thought we were dangerous inside in the full-forward line, particularly the first half.

“The likes of Cads (Alan Cadogan) had one or two chances, but we gave them too much space. The likes of Cathal Mannion was very good for Galway, he got on the ball a lot and got scores.

“We were a small bit loose at times around the middle, and once they got a run on us, as Galway can do, it was hard to stop. But we have to look at those things and rectify them.” Ryan acknowledged that Galway had dominated on puck-outs.

“They did, and I thought Pa (Cronin) tried very hard but maybe we bunched it at times, and maybe there weren’t enough options at times in midfield either. We mightn’t have used the ball well enough in our half-back line.

“But we’ll examine that, go back into the videos, and see where we went wrong. Galway were that bit sharper I thought. They won a lot more breaks, but it’s a learning curve for a lot of our fellas. We also had a few guys back, the likes of Lorcan McLoughlin and Christopher Joyce, so it’s great to get them game time.”