Brian Lawton says Cork need consistency of Kilkenny game

Cork’s Brian Lawton says he and his teammates are aiming for consistency after a good performance against Kilkenny last weekend.

Cork lost to the Cats courtesy of an injury-time point but were far better than they had been the previous weekend when Dublin hammered them.

“It was disappointing to lose to Kilkenny,” said Lawton. “And to lose the way we did, but it was important to get back on track after the disappointment of the way we lost against Dublin, and we did.

“There’s also the fact that it’s March, and teams are training at different levels, they’re gearing themselves up for different dates.

“We’ve been training very hard, so we wouldn’t have been focusing on a specific game-plan up to now. We’re honing in on the way we want to go now, and I think we saw that last Saturday night.”

Lawton, a CoreHR employee, acknowledged the performance against Dublin “wasn’t good enough”.

“The start we got last weekend against Kilkenny helped us a lot, but we knew well that the workrate had to improve on the Dublin game. It wasn’t good enough.

“When we looked back at the stats for the Dublin game we were way off the mark, particularly in the first half of that game.

“Against Kilkenny that was better— even when you were looking at the video analysis, all the numbers stacked up in terms of tackles and blocks and so on. If your workrate is better you’ll be on more ball, and you’ll see that reflected on the scoreboard as well, and we’ll be keen on doing that again tomorrow.”

Cork will be looking for more of the same in Semple Stadium tomorrow.

“We’re just taking the game as it is and looking for a good performance. It’s not so much who we’re playing as getting some consistency in our play.

“We know we can turn in a good performance every now and then, but it’s consistency we’re looking for - two, three or four performances of the quality of last Saturday night.

“Once we get that it’ll get more belief and confidence into the team, too.”

Lawton is playing deeper than you might expect from a wing-forward: “I’d always have been out around the middle with the club so playing half-forward and dropping back probably suits me — getting back to help out the lads, getting on the break and delivering fast ball to the lads inside when we can.