Paul Kerrigan: Cork targeting consistency

Paul Kerrigan has never been one for excuses. 

This is, after all, the footballer who labelled last summer’s championship exit to Kildare as “embarrassing”, at a time when every other member of the Cork camp had their head buried in the sand.

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for the squad, but you’d do well to find a single excuse offered up by their captain during this period of heavy defeats.

Sunday’s seven-point win over Monaghan provided a rare glimpse of sunlight in an otherwise dark spring for the Rebels, the 1-20 to 1-13 victory moving Peadar Healy’s side out of the drop zone after three disappointing defeats to Donegal, Roscommon, and Dublin.

Still in his match attire, Kerrigan ambles out of the home dressing room not long after the final whistle has sounded at Páirc Uí Rinn. His assessment runs for four minutes and on three occasions does he curse. It’s not a case of his dander being raised by any reporter present, rather his frustration at recent showings and his desire to see Cork achieve some semblance of consistency before the league concludes.

The road to redemption, in his eyes, began eight days previous at Croke Park, and while Cork may have faltered late on against Dublin, at least a bit of effort was shown.

“There was a big shift in attitude [after the Roscommon game],” says Kerrigan. “It was very disappointing to hear people say, ‘against Roscommon it looked like ye weren’t even trying’. That’s not the case. It was just... a bit more pride in ourselves, trying to get a bit more out of ourselves in the last couple of games.

“The performance last week was good, just a bit of endeavour, work-rate and pride was the main thing. That should be a non-negotiable. It is not as if fellas don’t care, it just wasn’t evident against Roscommon. We were a bit naive the way we set-up [against Roscommon] and it was just about showing a bit more honesty, tracking the runs and showing more intensity all around. When we have that intensity and that work-rate, that can be our barometer and we will be hard to beat.”

Said work-rate, honesty, tracking and intensity were raised several notches for the visit of Monaghan and as a result, the outcome was never in doubt once Cork stormed 1-5 to 0-0 clear after nine minutes. The Farneymen did cut the gap to four approaching the break, but Cork answered with six of the next seven scores.

“From a forward’s point of view, you would like to kick the first score, but we really targeted their first kick-out as a tune in. We got a score from our first attack and I would say we scored in nearly our first four or five attacks. There was intensity there, purpose .

“We have put good performances back-to-back, one against the All-Ireland champions, but not a win. It was nice to get a win today. We just wanted to get a win at the end of the day and be a bit more consistent.”

He added: Consistency, just f**king work-rate; that has to be our minimum. If it is not up there, we can look very average, as you seen against Roscommon and Donegal.”