Morgan one of few not surprised

Quotes: The sun came out to play in Killarney yesterday and with it a respectable-ish crowd for the 2006 instalment of Cork and Kerry. The attendance of 26,220 was roughly double the number of tickets sold by last Thursday - and there had been dark mutterings of the lowest Munster final crowd on record.

Then Cork reared up and made a fascinating match of the final, despite the pall of gloom in the county, which had been deepened by the decision to make so many changes from the much pilloried semi-final against Limerick.

To cap it all, after such an all-action afternoon with two red cards and plenty of talking points, Cork boss Billy Morgan emerged from his dressingroom in excellent humour - all smiles and bonhomie rather than the sometimes intense mood that settles on him - although he did quip about the refereeing: "Not bad for 14 against 16."

He said that the contentious kick in the last seconds from Cork's James Masters had, to the best of his knowledge, gone wide. Then he apologised for not seeing properly the incident which led to Anthony Lynch's 33rd-minute red card, insisting that he wasn't "doing an Arsene Wenger", but describing the dismissal as a "body blow. It stopped our momentum and Kerry brought it back to three in the couple of minutes before half-time."

Everything was fine until a question diffused through the sunshine like mustard gas - had the performance restored pride to Cork football after the display against Limerick?

"Why would there be a lack of pride?" Morgan demanded. "We conceded four points at the start and won the match 0-9 to 0-1 after that. Ye're the pundits and entitled to criticise, but the team that started today was almost the same as finished against Limerick. If you want to say we lacked pride, go ahead."

Asked had he been surprised by his inexperienced team's plucky showing he predictably wasn't. "They showed what I expected them to. We had to win in Monaghan in the league to stay up and we showed fighting qualities that day. I think they're a great bunch of lads."

Morgan's Kerry counterpart Jack O'Connor was unhappy at the amount of breaking ball they had lost to Cork, but felt that the match's context hadn't helped.

"It was easier for them to be hungry after the way they'd been written off. We'll see the next day. There'll be a different build-up to the replay. We missed a couple of frees that would have put us three up and I don't think Cork would have come back from that. But, overall, we were lucky enough to get away with it."

The most bullish assessment came from Cork selector John Corcoran. "We didn't finish the deal today," he said, "but I guarantee you we'll finish it in Páirc Uí Chaoimh next Sunday."