THEY WERE just after claiming league honours after an emphatic dismissal of Mayo and saw their championship preparations receive a major boost, but Cork manager Conor Counihan was keen for some context to be applied in Croke Park yesterday afternoon.
Mayo’s hugely ineffectual display meant Cork never received a rigorous challenge in yesterday’s final and their manager readily acknowledged that fact.
“The reality is Mayo were not at their best. If they were you could take an awful lot more out of the performance, the fact that they weren’t takes from it. We know all too well to come here and fail to perform is very disappointing. I’d say we were quite a bit away from big intensity today, just because we weren’t pressurised enough at any stage.
“When you are leading by six or seven points it is very easy to play well. Now I am not faulting our fellas from that point of view but it’s when you are down three or four points that you really have to battle and you really have to dig deep and you find out more about players then.”
His players subscribed to that school of thought as well. Attacker Daniel Goulding wound up with a 1-5 tally in an accomplished display but he also pointed out Mayo’s failings as key to Cork’s dominance.
“Mayo will probably be disappointed with themselves. They definitely didn’t play as well as two weeks ago against us and didn’t reach their potential. We played well but I don’t think we ever really took off. I think we’ll have to hit another level for the championship.
“Parts of the game we fell flat when we should have been pushing on. The first half especially, there wasn’t much pace to it. We base ourselves on fast ball and we weren’t doing that.”
It seemed strange that Cork were pointing out shortcomings in their play considering their complete dominance, but for Mayo a much deeper inquistion awaits as the county crashed to another disappointing Croke Park defeat.
“I have to say the better team won”, said manager John O’Mahony.
“Cork were able to up it a gear at any stage and at most stages when it was crucial certainly. We would be quite pleased with the league but we’d be desperately disappointed with today’s result and performance.
“I would say that we’ll put our hands up for today’s performance but they won’t put their hands up for the last 40 years or 50 years of performances here.
“But I’d be confident that we will reach championship intensity and we’ll look to defend our Connacht championship. We’re going to have to do that the hard way. There’ll be all kinds of worry and we know that we’re going to be hit within and without. I’m long enough in the game to know that is the challenge facing everybody on the management, everybody on the team and the panel. There’ll be no one looking for any of our lads this week, we have to go back and recover again.”
“Maybe we’re getting used to coming up to Croke Park and getting beat”, said Mayo goalkeeper David Clarke.
“There has to be a problem somewhere when we keep getting beaten up here. The most disappointing thing is the way that we didn’t perform. We got back to a stage in the second half where we were two points down and they pulled away from us. We knew that there’s a gap between us and the likes of Kerry, Tyrone and Cork and we didn’t fool ourselves into thinking we’re the best team in the country.”
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