By Cian O'Connell

Disappointed to have exited the All Ireland SHC, Cork manager Kieran Kingston is adamant that significant potential exists Leeside.

Kingston, though, stressed the need for Cork's players to develop and improve further.

When asked about the the promise of emerging talent and that some positives could be located from the campaign Kingston offered an interesting response.

"There is but I'm not a fan of moral victories to be honest," Kingston says about the sources of optimism in Cork. 

"They don't rest well with me. It's 15 years since we won an All-Ireland, heading for 16 now. I think we've moved beyond moral victories. Yeah there's a lot of positives. 

"We got to take those, but we've got to say we've raised the bar this year to this level, what do we have to do now to take it another step. 

"That's the challenge now for us as management and players to take it to the next level because I think this group are certainly capable of going there."

Following every Championship loss speculation is inevitable about the possibility of changes to the panel.

"Things are very, very raw," Kingston remarked. "I just spoke to the players there. It's a very sad dressing room because we believed in ourselves. 

"We believed we were good enough to win, we came up here to win. It's not the time to be making those decisions. 

"All I can say I think the team showed and the panel showed what they were capable of. 

"Lots of young players, missing a few players as well, we lost Deccie Dalton through injury during the game. So I think the first thing is they showed what they can do. 

"All I can say is whatever we feel as a group that needs to be done to make us that little bit better, will be done."