ANTHONY NASH INSISTS that complacency was not the reason for Cork’s lacklustre start to Sunday’s Munster championship clash with Waterford.
According to the Cork goalkeeper his team don’t have enough medals to be complacent.
“There’s no complacency ever with Cork. Jesus Christ, sure what have we won? It’s not like we have seven All-Ireland medals in each of our pockets.
“We have no All-Ireland or even Munster medals. We’re never complacent going into games. We see ourselves as underdogs every time.”
Cork were nine points down into the second half of Sunday’s Munster Championship quarter-final before they came to life – somehow coming out of Thurles with a draw.
“People are going to say we were complacent but it’s not that at all,” says Nash. ‘We just didn’t get going for some reason unfortunately.”
While Waterford debutant Austin Gleeson stole the show on Sunday, there were fine displays from Cork’s Alan Cadogan, Mark Ellis and Aidan Walsh, who were all making their championship debuts.
“It’ll be the same the next day. There’s absolutely no complacency. We had injuries last year and got new fellas onto the panel. Seamus Harnedy benefited from injuries last year and look at him now.
“Waterford will be the same. They’ll get new fellas to come in and they showed today that they’re well able to hurl as always.”
Cork went in at half time six points down but according to their Allstar goalkeeper things remained calm in Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s dressing room.
‘There were no instructions really. Just keep hurling to the game-plan, that’s all you’re trying to do.
‘I suppose we didn’t do it in the first half and just had to stick to it in the second-half. The wind was a big factor and it opened up the game for us in the second-half. We created opportunities that we didn’t in the first half and thankfully we took the points. Unfortunately we didn’t take the goals.
‘We got one but we probably had other chances that we could have taken. We’ll just have to learn from it for the next day.’
Cork competed in this year’s Division 1B league, going unbeaten in all five of their games.
Despite losing out on the heightened standards of Division 1A hurling, something Waterford clearly benefited from, Nash feels that this too had no influence on their poor start on Sunday.
‘I wouldn’t blame the Division 1B for it. I think it was just the pace we hurled at ourselves. If you were going out against Laois, Antrim, Wexford, Limerick or Offaly it doesn’t mean you lower your pace.
‘There’s an awful perception about that out there. We didn’t hurl well in the League and we just seemed to carry that through to today. We need to get the heads up now and maybe improve in the next two weeks. We got a good lesson today.
‘We were out-hurled and out-worked for the majority of it and just pulled ourselves out of it. That’s the honest truth.’
Cork’s Bill Cooper found the back of the Waterford net on 48 minutes, to breathe life back into a game which looked to be slipping away from the Rebels.
‘The goal got us back into it really. If we hadn’t gotten the goal we might have struggled to get a few more points.
‘I suppose Hoggy’s point out on the sideline was fantastic and Aidan’s point as well – the catch and score. You can look at things like that but there was no individual moment really. It’s just when you start to get a run on a team you start getting breaks and that’s what we did.’
