‘We need to ask ourselves some questions’ – Meyler

FROM a position where Cork went into Sunday’s game on the back of wins over Clare and Limerick, with a chance to reach the quarter-finals, they must now try to regroup after a disappointing performance.

Kilkenny provide the opposition in Nowlan Park on Sunday the relegation play-off which won’t actually relegate anyone and Cork will have a lot of improving to do after a thirteen-point reversal.

Needless to say, manager John Meyler was less than happy with how his side had performed, believing that not enough players had been up to the requisite level.

“Yes, it’s disappointing from the point of view we played Limerick two weeks ago and put in a good solid performance and we followed it up today with a disappointing performance,” he said.

“In the first ten minutes I thought we were going well, Alan Cadogan was sharp, we got a couple of scores early, but then Tipp took over and really drove it on. We couldn’t get back into the game. It’s disappointing. Bill Cooper was probably the only one powering into the game with the competitive attitude that we wanted.

“That was lacking so we need to ask ourselves some questions. I don’t know why [it happened]. We trained this week, training was good, we had a competitive match this week and I thought we were good. It’s just disappointing we couldn’t put two displays together, Limerick and Tipperary.”

The fact that captain Séamus Harnedy was sent off following a clash with Tipp’s James Barry was something that frustrated Meyler, not because of the decision itself, but because the skipper was also dismissed against Waterford in last year’s league.

He will be able to serve his suspension in the Kilkenny game, but Meyler doesn’t want one of his leaders to be in such disciplinary trouble too often.

“That’s the second time he has been sent off by the same referee [Seán Cleere],” Meyler said.

“Against Waterford last year down in the Park [was the other time]. It’s just indiscipline, lack of discipline. He’ll be good to go in the championship – it’s just discipline that we need to get right.”

Trailing by ten points at halftime, Cork had a strong wind to come and Meyler wasn’t too troubled, believing that there was a way back into the game. Ultimately, Jason Forde’s goal opened up a lead that was never likely to be hauled in, but things might have transpired differently if the ball had dropped inside, rather than outside, the post when Tipp goalkeeper Paul Maher dropped Cormac Murphy’s goalward delivery.

“We were grand [at half-time],” Meyler said.

“We felt if we could get a few scores and get back into the game but it was Tipp who dove on. They got a couple of scores and pulled away.”

The result meant that Cork finished on four points, with two wins and three losses, the same as Tipp and Kilkenny but bottom of the table by virtue of having a much worse scoring difference of minus-18.

Nevertheless, Meyler could take some positives from a campaign which was always intended as being prioritised towards building squad depth to provide management with more options come the championship.

“We were competitive in two games out of the five,” he said.

“We tried to blood some new players. Aidan Walsh has stood up to it. We’ll have Seán O’Donoghue, Darragh Fitzgibbon back, [Daniel] Kearney, we’ll be strengthening up again.

“We need to get back and reassess ourselves and see what we done right and done wrong. The first ten minutes, we looked really sharp, but after that it was poor.”