Having soared to Munster Final managerial success over Clare in 2017, Sunday’s defeat cut deep for Kieran Kingston as it was Cork’s third successive big-match reverse.
The criticism of August’s All-Ireland Final pummelling at the hands of Limerick had been sated somewhat by a hugely positive National league campaign. However, the wheels came off in the final against Waterford and that malaise has extended into the championship as Limerick and Clare have realistically put paid to the Rebels’ hopes of advancing to this years All-Ireland series.
“We came into the game in control of our own destiny and after today we lose that control so it goes without saying that it was massively disappointing.” Began the Cork manager in the adjoining dressing room in Thurles immediately afterwards.
“We had a very bad start, we were playing into the breeze in the first half and I think we were really nervous for the first 20 or 25 minutes and made some elementary mistakes. And that’s disappointing because if you give a team of the calibre of Clare – we saw how good they were last week – that lead, it was always going to be difficult to claw it back.
“We’ve to hold our hands up, we were beaten by a better team on the day, there’s no question about that. Clare deserved their win and I’m not going to make any excuses about that.”
Has the recent criticism been difficult to stomach?
“It’s part of the territory, we all know that, and since the Limerick game, there has been a lot said by different people that has affected payers a bit. People are obviously entitled to their opinions but I thought we showed a bit of nervousness off the back of that at the start today. And that was reflected on the scoreboard as we were eleven down in the second quarter.
“But it’s about picking up the pieces now as we still have two more matches and we can only control what’s in front of us, we can’t change what happened against Limerick or today.
“We’ve lost control of our own destiny but the bottom line is that players are representing Cork in two weeks time in Walsh Park so it’s a big game and we’d expect that they represent that jersey in a proper manner irrespective of what happens elsewhere.”