THERE ARE NO hard luck stories going to emerge from the Cork dressing room if Jimmy Barry Murphy has his way. He’s proud of his side’s performances over the two All-Ireland hurling finals and he wants to make sure they know it.
“I thanked [the players] for their efforts this year,” he told RTE after the game, “they’ve been fantastic for me and for the management team and they’ve done the county proud over the whole year.
“There’s no disgrace in being beaten by Clare who are a superb team and I said to them we’ll take our beating like men now and try and get back here again.”
According to Barry-Murphy, there wasn’t much he and his management team could have done over the two games it took to separate the two sides.
“We could have won. I have to acknowledge that Clare are a superb team and they deserve their victory and the kind of hurling they played was fantastic.”
Ultimately though, Cork’s failure to take control of either game – they only led for two of the 146 minutes it took to decide this year’s All-Ireland final winner – that came back to haunt them at the end.
“Our lads did us proud, they were eight points down and got back to level it but, I suppose, over the two days, when you’re playing catch up, you don’t get away with that and they got some great scores when they really needed them.
“I suppose that, when we got level, we’d a number of very good chances which didn’t go our way today but, when you’re chasing a game as much as we are, one slip and you could be caught.
“Our lads fought to the last second, they were absolutely brilliant and I’m very, very proud of them.”
