Mark Collins: ‘Fear’ factor drove Cork

Mark Collins admits there was more on the line for the Cork footballers going to Longford on Saturday than just a qualifier win.

“I think in the first half there you could see we played with a small bit of fear. We knew coming up here for a lot of us our Cork careers were on the line a small bit. We hadn’t performed in a lot of big games in the last couple of years and we really had a point to prove to ourselves.

“We had let ourselves down big time in matches against Kildare last year and Tipp this year. Today was a big one. We knew we’d have no-one up here only family and friends and we had a big chance to show a bit of bottle and thank God we got through it.”