Kerry must improve after 'rusty' performance against Cork says Jack O'Connor
Kerry manager Jack O'Connor reflects on the Kingdom's 0-23 to 0-11 victory over Cork in the Munster SFC semi-final. Meanwhile, interim Rebels boss John Cleary says he is proud of his side's display
Monday 9 May 2022 20:33, UK
The 12-point winning margin did not tell the entire story on Saturday evening in Páirc Uí Rinn.
For much of the contest, Kerry had an almighty battle on their hands as Cork threw everything they had at their neighbours.
The dam eventually broke after the 50th minute. Kerry turned a 0-11 to 0-10 lead into an eight-point advantage with seven without reply.
"We expected a battle, and to be fair to Cork they gave us a battle," Jack O'Connor reflected at full-time.
"Cork brought a lot of bodies back. They were energetic, we were a bit sloppy with the ball. We kind of expected that, because we didn't play a game in five weeks. We didn't play any challenge games.
"We picked up a good share of niggles after the league final, and there were some players who didn't train possibly for the bones of three weeks. So I was expecting rust, and we saw a good bit of that."
He was not surprised by the Rebels' challenge in the least.
"Relieved to be over today, because we felt this was going to be a dangerous game. Cork were being written off, there was a lot of loose talk about how bad they were," he noted.
"We felt they were going to be a good bit better than they were in the league, and they were to be fair. That wasn't the Cork team that struggled to stay in Division 2, I would suggest. You have to give them a lot of credit."
And he knows they will need to improve in the coming weeks:
"We were sloppy with the ball, we were keeping Cork in the game by turning over the ball in our forward line. We had seven áiféiseach turnovers in the first half. Just hand-passes going astray, picking bad options, forcing passes. And it was a sign that we weren't up to championship pace.
"I wasn't surprised by that, because five weeks is a long time without a game, particularly when you don't play a challenge game. Particularly when we had a share of injuries. And I expected lads to be rusty and there was plenty of evidence of that.
"[The substitutes] steadied it up. David Moran gave us a great base of possession. Aerially he's very strong. I thought he controlled the game. He did nothing foolish with the ball, he took sensible options.
"And obviously the two Pauls (Murphy and Geaney) are very experienced players as well. It's great to be able to bring that kind of experience off the bench. It's all up for grabs again for the final. They'll be great craic for the first 15 for the final."
'Our lads put in a huge shift'
Meanwhile, stand-in Cork boss John Cleary said the Rebels need to build on their performance.
"The better team won on the day, I suppose our lads were asked for a performance and in fairness, they left everything out there and eventually we were just beaten by the better team, they wore us down, they were bringing All Stars off the bench there and they kicked great scores," he said.
"But from our point of view our lads put in a huge shift and on another day we might have got a few more scores but we didn't, we were beaten by the better team and just hold the hand up and wish the best of luck to Kerry because I'd say the team that beats them won't be far off winning an All-Ireland this year."
Saturday's showing represents a major improvement from the 2021 Munster final when they lost by 22 points.
"Looking in from outside the wire last year Cork were very competitive up until half-time and it went away from them. Maybe we were competitive for 55 minutes here, we still got beaten by 12 points but I don't think at any time that Kerry actually ripped through us," he outlined.
"I thought we had some heroic defending in the backline at times and I thought we should have maybe had four or five points more that would have made it a small bit more respectable but look I couldn't fault any of the lads for lack of effort."
The Rebels now enter the qualifiers.
"There will be no easy draw, the big thing now is to try and build on this but it's probably no use having a heroic defeat," Cleary stated. "We lost by 12 points and have an awful lot to work on."
Sky Sports' live GAA coverage continues on Saturday with the Leinster SHC meeting between Dublin and Kilkenny.
