O’Neill fronts up after latest set-back for Cork football in the Banner
A GROUP of Cork journalists gathered outside the Rebels’ dressing room in Cusack Park on Sunday and waited... and waited.
They were in it for the long haul, because even if there was no ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign outside, the result and the vibes on the way towards this sanctuary (even though it must have been far from that) were such that the door was always going to be bolted behind them.
Still they waited and passed away the time by discussing which troubadour would be best to sum up the depression that everyone in red was experiencing after this 2-11 to 0-9 defeat.
“It would have to be a Leonard Cohen song,” volunteered one, “because it would capture the mood the best”.
“Jeff Buckley could do that too,” said another.
The list could go on and on, so much that when a member of the Cork backroom team finally emerged from the dressing room some 45 minutes later the mood of some members of the press corps had hardened.
“I know that ye’re doing the best ye can,” said radio reporter Michael Scanlan, “but are ye questioning ye’re own ability at this stage,” he added.
“Look,” answered selector Eoin O’Neill, “that’s a scandalous thing to say and I’m not going to answer that”.
But O’Neill answered plenty of other questions.
“The lads are hurting and there’s no doubt about that,” he said of the mood inside.
“We’re trying to get performances out of the lads. There’s no point saying it’s not frustrating – it’s very disappointing. Everybody in there is giving it a lot of effort, players, management, backroom team. There are great guys involved with us. We’re all in it together, we’re all pushing hard, we’re all doing our best,” he added.
That it wasn’t good enough told in the gap of eight points between the sides, with the Rebels being outscored 1-9 to 0-4 in the second half when they were playing with the elements.
“We started at a certain pace and it wasn’t enough,” admitted O’Neill. “We just got no momentum in the game. Fair play to Clare, hands up to them, they won the match and deserved to win the match.
“There was possibly hope at half-time, we were playing with the elements in the second half, but at the end of the day they outscored us 0-4 to nothing in the third quarter. That’s the moving quarter in matches – that’s what you see and when you do that we found it very hard to get back into it.
“That was it basically. They got the scores at the start of the third quarter. We pushed on and left a couple of gaps and they got a goal that killed the game off,” he added.
The defeat leaves Cork in the bottom half of the division, with only Fermanagh below them their haul of three points from a possible eight being a huge blow to their promotion hopes as the spectre of relegation looms large.
“The odds are stacked against us now,” admitted O’Neill, “but I think there’s a bigger issue now. We’ve just got to go out and get ourselves right again. It’s our first 35 minutes against Meath in two weeks time. We have to bring it down to that simplicity and that’s what we intend to do.”