FORMER CORK STAR Seanie McGrath admitted that yesterday wasn’t a good day for the Rebels as they slumped to a heavy Munster SHC quarter-final defeat against Tipperary.
But McGrath insisted that the “best panel available” was picked by manager Kieran Kingston ahead of the Semple Stadium showdown.
Speaking on The Sunday Game last night, ex-selector McGrath was reluctant to apportion blame to Kingston and his backroom team.
“To be fair to the management committee, they picked the best panel available.
“He didn’t give any guy a debut but he did start guys that haven’t been around last year.
“He made some big calls earlier in the year and there were 7 or 8 new guys on the panel.
“The best panel was picked. Unfortunately the game-plan didn’t come to fruition because the forwards didn’t play well enough.
Kieran is doing an awful lot of work and putting in a trojan effort, he does have a development squad working in the background. He’s working on a two or three-year plan, the Cork public won’t like to hear that.
“Losing against the old enemy like that isn’t good enough but at the end of the day, maybe we’re just not good enough at the moment.”
Fellow pundit and former Tipperary goalkeeper Brendan Cummins insisted, however, that the Cork management team must shoulder their share of responsibility for the nine-point defeat.
He said: “The Cork management would admit it afterwards that they contributed some bit to their own demise.
“There’s a right and wrong way of doing it (sweeper system). It’s not in the DNA of the Cork players to implement it, it takes a long time to do it.
“The best proponent of it is Davy Fitzgerald’s Clare and Cian Dillon especially.
“The sweeper was ineffective because he (William Egan) was trying to do a role he wasn’t used to.”
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