This won’t be good enough against Kerry, says Healy
PHEW. That was the sound from the Cork dressing room and the county board officers when Luke Connolly’s late goal ensured they scraped past Tipperary last night.
The sense of relief was etched into every part of Peadar Healy’s face as the Rebel boss dissected the game, but he was determined to focus on the positives, not the fact that his team only scored a single first-half point.
‘If we had scored one of our two goal chances in the first 10 minutes, it would have settled us into the game faster,’ Healy suggested. ‘But, look, we went out and dug out a result.
‘Defensively we were okay but we were missing scoreable opportunities. Those two goal chances, you need to be taking those in Championship football.’
Healy claimed his players took control of the situation at halftime. ‘They knew the performance wasn’t good enough. They were very critical and very hard on themselves.
‘That result will give them confidence but we can’t play like that if we are playing a Munster final against Kerry, because they will be out the gate and on the bus back to Killarney by half-time if we do.’
Meanwhile, Tipp boss Liam Kearns saw Michael Quinlivan added to the county’s expanding injury list with what looked like a season-ending ankle complaint.
‘In fairness over the course of the second half, Cork deserved to win the game,’ he said.
‘We were down so many bodies, I’d be very proud of my fellas and how they performed. We were excellent in the first half. When you lose Michael Quinlivan you are talking about a massive hit.
‘If you add that to [suspended] Evan Comerford and all the other injuries, I think the shape we are in, it might be better to let Cork go and play Kerry at the moment. It’s going to be a tough task for them, I think maybe they’ll have to improve quite a bit. I’d give them a lot of credit, they took a lot of chances in the second half when they came at us and they pushed up on the sweeper.
‘They took over the middle third, they left an awful lot of space in behind. I don’t think they would have done that if Michael Quinlivan was there to be honest and that was crucial,’ he added.