Cork boss Kieran Kingston wasn’t getting carried away at his team’s progress after pointing out that “the obituaries were written for the whole group” only three weeks earlier.
A defeat to Clare that was far more convincing than the final two-point margin might suggest put Cork on the brink of an early elimination after reaching last year’s All-Ireland final before wins on the road against Waterford and now Tipperary have rebooted their season.
But Kingston said: “What have we done? we've got out of Munster, that's it. Our objective was to get to a Munster final, we haven't done that, we got out of Munster and it's no more than that, we're certainly not going to get carried away.
“We're delighted to be still in the championship, in the All-Ireland series, we're not in Munster as I said.
“We are delighted to be in the All-Ireland series because it didn't look like it a couple of weeks ago and the obituaries were written for the whole group so that's great but we've an awful lot to learn and a lot to do.”
Reflecting on the criticism that they received after a slow start to the Championship, Kingston continued: “I said below in Walsh Park last Sunday that one of the players mentioned that he thought there were 10,000 Cork people there because, coming down the stretch, when we needed the Cork support, they were absolutely awesome.
“Cork people love their hurling and I suppose when you get to an All-Ireland final and League final, expectation goes up. Then you don’t deliver and criticism goes up accordingly but that’s the game we’re in and we have to deal with that as a management team and as players and we can deal with that.
“We’re privileged to be in the position we’re in as players and management and not everyone can or would take the risk of doing what we do. That’s what makes intercounty players and management and backroom team and all that goes with it different. If it wasn’t different, then you wouldn’t have 30,000 people coming to see them play.
“Cork supporters are awesome but of course there was negativity out there – we would think some of it unjustified, but then again, that’s our view. You know what they say about opinions!
“You have to look as well at who’s giving the opinion.”
They now face Antrim or Kerry in an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final on June 11/12 and Kingston said he’d prefer to surf their new-found momentum instead of enduring the lay-off.
“Yeah, look, a little bit of momentum, you'd rather be playing. We're not in control of that.
“We didn't do enough in Munster to be involved in a Munster final. We'd love to be involved in a Munster final, we didn't do enough. We were involved in a League final, we didn't perform.
“By the skin of our teeth, I think we're the first team to get through in the round-robin having lost the first two games and that was our aim after the first two games. That was the only game in town.
“So delighted with that but disappointed we're not partaking in the Munster final because there's three competitions to play for. The League we lost, Munster we're out of, so we're in the third one now.”
Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
