Cork captain Mark Coleman has explained how some hard conversations after the Limerick and Clare defeats helped to turn their season around.
In the third year of the provincial round robin format, Cork became the first team in Munster or Leinster to progress to the knockout stages after losing their opening two matches as they overturned the comprehensive League final loss to Waterford before going to Thurles and inflicting their biggest defeat on Tipperary for 80 years.
The level of performance over the last two Sundays has been far removed from what was served up in the opening two rounds and Coleman admitted that a frank airing of views was held after the Clare defeat.
“Absolutely,” he said. “There has to be. We knew that we didn’t play to our own standards and when you don’t meet your standards you have to ask why so there has to be those conversations.
“It’s just take the learnings from it really more than anything, what went wrong and try and fix it so it’s the same as any poor performance, that’s what you do.”
He added: “It’s important in this kind of format that you keep tight as a group, that you know that there’s going to be chances. That’s the group format and we never panicked. We took some big learnings from the first two games.
“We were poor, to be fair, in the first two games, took the learnings and came out and turned around the last two. Thankfully it worked out the way it did and we’re out of the group.”
It was difficult to maintain belief after those setbacks, particularly as they came on the back of the League final meltdown against Waterford.
“I suppose it’s tough when you’re losing games but we knew that there was some obvious learnings there.
“You try and look after the big rocks first and if you can try and get them right and see where the performance goes after that, that’s the main thing and once we got those things right - the big things that were wrong - the performances started coming like last week and this week.
“There’s still a lot to work on now, I think it’s three weeks, there’s still a lot to be done. We’re nowhere near the finished article so still work to be done.”
A rejigging of the team has seen Coleman revert to wing-back from the centre and it appears to be paying off, with Ciaran Joyce slotting in nicely at the heart of the defence while the skipper has been liberated by the switch, hitting 0-3 against Tipp.
“Well there’s a big difference in the role. It’s not that I’m more comfortable. I suppose just the role itself allows you that bit more freedom.”
As Coleman referenced, Cork now face a three-week lay-off before playing the winners of the Antrim-Kerry Joe McDonagh Cup final in an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final, a game they would be expected to win comfortably. Presuming they progress, next up would be a quarter-final against one of the beaten provincial finalists.
“It’s the same preparation now no matter who you’re facing. The Joe McDonagh, I think Laois turned Dublin over a few years ago so there’s definitely no game you can take for granted.”
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