John Cleary: It’s unbelievably disappointing at this stage

CORK football manager John Cleary cut a deeply frustrated figure after his side were beaten by Louth in the All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final on Sunday afternoon.

Inniskeen in south Monaghan was packed to the rafters and rocking and in the end, Louth did enough to win by a point, 1-9 to 1-8. Sam Mulroy’s free deep in added time proved to be the winner. Cork will not be happy with how they played in the second half. They led by three points at the break, but never kicked on as their season comes to an end.

“We should have won that game but we didn’t win the game,” Cleary says.

“In fairness, Louth hung in there at times. We were in a good position at half-time and then they clawed their way back into it. We got several chances and then a sucker punch of a goal that gave them something to cling onto. We got back from that and got a chance there at the end and didn’t close it out and it’s unbelievably disappointing at this stage.

“In one respect, we only have ourselves to blame. When you don’t take the chances, the other team clings in there and they took their opportunity. They played very defensive and we were trying to be patient. We knew we didn’t want to go into their web at times and I thought in the first half we were patient. We got 1-5 and we should have got 1-7 or 1-8. 

At the end of the day, we scored 1-8 and that’s not going to win anything and that’s where our problem lies. We only conceded 1-9, which on another day we mightn’t have conceded.” 

There was no doubt the goal from Donal McKenny after 56 minutes was a momentum shifter. Cork led by a point before the green flag was raised. It was a huge moment.

“In fairness to Louth, when they got their opportunity, they took it like we did in the first half,” the Cork boss said.

“We were semi in control at that stage, they kicked a high ball up in the air and instead of going out, it was in the back of the net. 

We fought and got the scores to level it but we should have managed the last ball better there at the end.

“Kerry probably had the bit of class last week to get at Louth and particularly down the flanks and the endline. We knew from watching their previous games that bar the Dublin game that’s the way they played, defensive.” 

A campaign that promised so much ends in huge disappointment. After reaching the quarter-finals of the Sam Maguire in the last two seasons, failure to reach the last eight this year will be seen as regression. 

BITTER BLOW

An underwhelming end to the campaign for the Rebels. There will be no visit to Croker next weekend.

“The season will be defined a lot by the last game,” Cleary says.

“We had some good days and poor days. Again, consistency and missing scores are probably the two things that have robbed us from making progress and I’m sure when people look back at this game they will think of it.

“Maybe in a couple of weeks when we look back at the overall season, we’ll see but I think maybe a mixed bag. Some good stuff. We had a very good game with Kerry in Killarney, we beat Donegal, we drew with Armagh in the league, went to Fermanagh, went to Meath and played well and got over the line. 

The likes of today now though will put a dampener on a lot of that.

“A lot of it comes down to the championship and this was a test for us, we knew it was a test coming up here and those are the type of tests you’ve got to pass if we’re going to go onto the next level. That was the aim, to get up to the top tier, definitely into the last eight and there was an opportunity for us and we didn’t take it.”