O'Connor hopes Cork will have learned lessons from League Final defeat
Cork manager Ben O'Connor during the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A final match between Limerick and Cork at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Cork manager Ben O’Connor believes his team will have learned a lot in defeat against Limerick in today’s Allianz Hurling League Division 1A Final.
They have just two weeks to prepare now for the Munster SHC first round clash with Tipperary, and O’Connor’s focus has already shifted to that game
“I suppose we started poorly and we got back into the game before half time. We got a slow enough start to the second half but we got into it and then in the last 15 or 20 minutes they took over again around the middle of the field,” said O’Connor when asked to sum up where the game went wrong from a Cork point of view.
“They got scores a lot easier than we did, with and against the breeze. We'll just have to look back on the video and see where we can improve on.
“It probably suited us better against the breeze that the ball was dropping in front of our forwards, dropping in front of our forwards.
“And I suppose the second half they sat back and we had no room inside there so that's just something to look at. We've a lot of learnings to take from it and we'll improve from it.
“I'm always saying that we have a great bunch of fellas, we just have to do a little bit better and the margins are small, so a small little bit of improvement will repay us in the long run.
“We've a great bunch, every night that we're inside in training every fella gives his all. We'll get criticised today for that but we'll be back at it again tomorrow morning, back training and every one of them lads will be on again and it's all about Thurles in two weeks' time.”
Cork defender Seán O’Donoghue was forced off injured in the first half of today’s match and O’Connor revealed he’ll need to have a scan on his hamstring.
“He got knocked in the head, so he was taken off, but he had a hamstring problem as well,” said O’Connor.
“I don't know whether it happened just before it or whether it was in the same tackle, but it saw him (off) on two counts. So, with the head injury, there's no point risking him with that and a touch of the hamstring as well.
“You know yourself, a minor hamstring is two or three weeks as well. He'll be scanned during the week and we'll see how that is.”