Cleary not fretting over Taillteann Cup trap-door 

ONTO THE NEXT: Cork manager John Cleary shakes hands with Louth manager Mickey Harte after the Allianz Football League Division 2 match between Louth and Cork at Páirc Mhuire in Ardee. Pic: Stephen Marken/Sportsfile

An annoying loss for Cork in rural Louth on Sunday but not one that need colour anything they plan to do from now to the end of the season.

The spectre that is the Tailteann Cup was all but banished with three successive Division Two wins before this latest loss. That’s still to be confirmed by forthcoming events but the Cork manager clearly isn’t fretting about it anyway.

“We’ll just see how that pans out,” he said after the three-point loss in Ardee. 

“The worst we can finish is fifth and it would want to take a lot of strange results to put us out of the Sam Maguire. Two other teams from Division Three and Four would have to make the Ulster and Leinster finals.

“So all we are doing at the moment concentrating week to week and game to game. We have Derry next week and we have to settle down then for the Munster Championship, hopefully make the Munster final and then that takes anything out of the equation. It’s every week now.” 

This one made for an interesting test of their progress given the tight little ground and pitch and Louth’s own winning run of three games on the tot that had left them just below Cork in the table on the basis of points difference.

Comfortable through so much of the first-half, it all went pear-shaped for the Munster side near the interval with the concession of a soft penalty and subsequent goal and then Daniel O’Mahony’s departure with a red card.

Add in their now trademark profligacy in front of goal and you have the bones of the story.

“We were patient and we knew that they were going to be on the defensive and I thought we coped well with it. Then we missed a goal and they went up and got the penalty so it was a six-point turnaround. Instead of 1-7 to two points it was seven to 1-2 and then the sending-off compounded that.

“Lots of things didn’t go in our favour today but that’s the nature of the game and Louth stuck in there. They were very composed and patient in the second-half and I thought we gave them cheap ball there and when they got back to level the next score was going to win it. They stood up and they took them.” 

As for the penalty, Cleary didn’t have a good enough view of it, but referee Fergal Kelly did explain that he had little choice with the sending-off. Daniel O’Mahony’s challenge was accidental, he told Cleary, but it was reckless and high and he had to go.

“I take his word on it. It was harsh but that is the nature of the game.”