Relief and vindication for Meyler after a difficult league

JOHN Meyler stood with his back to the wall in Páirc Uí Rinn after last Sunday’s game with Waterford with a hint of a smile on his face and a little more optimism in his tone – well, that’s what you get when your side put in a credible display and avoid relegation.

Meyler, a confident man, with clear views on where he wants and expects his side to do admitted that he came into the relegation play-off game with the Deise under pressure – something that many Cork managers wouldn’t face this early in their tenure.

“As a manager, you are under pressure if you don’t win and I was under pressure today to get a result. I’m just pleased with the performance. We played six games in the league, we won two and lost four, and that was the critical game to win, to get us into the Munster championship with a bit of impetus and maintain our 1A status.

“That was really the goal. We tried to be competitive over the league, we’ve tried to bring in young players, Tim O’Mahony, Seán O’Donoghue, Robbie O’Flynn, Eoin Cadogan has been excellent for us over the league and I think they have added to and strengthened the panel and that is what I am happy about.

“I would like to be in the semi-final of the league but we are not, but I am thankful for maintaining the 1A status.

“It is a learning process and important for young players to play at the highest level we can. You saw Tim [O’Mahony] and you saw Darren Browne and Robbie [O’Flynn] they are raw, but another year of that hurling with the likes of Limerick now coming in means there is a strong Munster influence there – it’s a learning curve for them and it is great for Cork hurling.”

Meyler was pleased with the way his side led from start to finish but still felt there were things his charges could improve on.

“We started well and were up five points early on with Bill [Cooper] and Darragh [Fitzgibbon] driving at them early on and that really gave us that platform in the middle and they shot over a few nice points – all that is really good for us

– we have been trying to get that 70-minute performance but we still didn’t get it but we will need to get that for championship in May.

“We at least built on the good things we did at times against Wexford and Clare and after we went missing for 10 or 15 minutes against Tipperary it was important to stay focussed.

“So today we emphasised at the break that we couldn’t go to sleep in the second half and I thought we played really well in the first 10 minutes of the second half and that really was critical.”

So, what does the win against Waterford do for Cork, outside of securing the status as a 1A team for next year? Well according to Meyler it gives his side a place to push on from.

“This win today gives us a platform even though we were missing the likes of Damien Cahalane and Mark Ellis and please God they will be back soon so we need to keep looking at the panel and we need to strengthen the panel again.

“We hopefully will have options now with Tim [O’Mahony], Seán O’Donoghue and the likes of Cadogan who has been excellent for us as a character, as a motivator as a leader to the younger fellows.”

Meyler was delighted with the spread of scorers on the day and was quick to point out that people had been critical in the past about the side’s reliance on the likes of Patrick Horgan.

“People had been saying that Patrick [Horgan] was the only scorer we had and we spoke about trying to get players on the ball to get two or three points rather than one each and also to get frees from Patrick.

“We got seven points from the middle so that is positive but maybe the full forward line are being starved as a result of that but really everybody has to come up and contribute two or three points each.” Meyler can now take stock before the pressure really ramps up in a month’s

time.