FOR THE FIRST time in 72 years, Cork crashed out at the hands of Tipperary yesterday in the Munster senior football championship.
Despite being strong favourites, Cork bowed out at the provincial semi-final stage and selector Eoin O’Neill admitted to a sense of shock after the game.
“We are gutted now at the moment, in a bit of shock, but that is sport. You go out there, you take your chances, but today wasn’t our day.
“We did miss a good few chances. We missed a few chances in the second-half too. We will have to analyse that after.
“It is a bit raw at the moment. We didn’t take our chances, they took full advantage of theirs and all the best to them in the Munster final.”
Cork boss Peadar Healy insisted that they did not underestimate their opponents.
“Give great credit to Tipperary, here at home. We certainly didn’t underestimate them coming up here. We conceded too much – we were trying to rectify that all year.
“If you were told you’d score 2-16 today you’d hope to win. Too many turnovers in the first half, eight wides and it took too much out of us to get back after drawing level.”
Cork rang the changes in the second-half with Donncha O’Connor, Daniel Goulding and Peter Kelleher hitting a combined total of 0-6 when introduced to their attack.
It nearly resulted in them fashioning an unlikely comeback.
“We were hoping they’d kick us over the line,” admitted Healy.
“Donncha kicked a few good points for us and Daniel kicked a few good points for us.
“Daniel was unfortunate there at the end when they got a point up, it just went wide. Look, on another day they’d go over.”
Cork drafted key figures from the county’s All-Ireland U21 final team, into the side in the second-half
“Peter came on today and he did well,” stated O’Neill.
“He is a player for the future. Good for him. You go out with a certain set-up and we backed the lads fully. That is just way it goes sometimes.
“Of course there is hope for future. We have a lot of young lads on this panel. We had a couple of injuries coming into this game.
“We brought on Sean Powter, Sean White and Peter Kelleher. They are the future. We have to mix it.”
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