Offaly v Cork: Pat Ryan disappointed by Rebels’ sloppiness

Cork manager Pat Ryan lamented what he felt was a sloppy performance from his side in overcoming Offaly on Saturday.

Going in as 1/100 favourites, there was never a likelihood that Cork would be denied their place in next weekend’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Dublin. However, it took them time to get away from Offaly in the second half and, even then, the concession of two late goals underlined Ryan’s sentiments – as he put it, “Fellas were just waiting for the game to be over.”

There were some bright spots but, overall, Ryan wanted to see much more from this team.

“Obviously, it was a disappointing performance from our side of it,” he said.

“There were some good passages of hurling and we opened them up at times but it was just very sloppy – not breaking the tackle enough, throwing balls over our heads that weren’t there and we didn’t hard enough on what we should have done.

“In fairness to Offaly, they were very good, they were very well set-up. You could see they had momentum behind them in the way the county is going at the moment and they tore into our fellas.

“Like any inter-county team, if you don’t match them with energy and with workrate, the game is going to be tight.”

This was Cork’s first game since beating Tipperary in the Munster SHC on May 19 while Offaly have been playing regularly in the Joe McDonagh Cup but, even so, Ryan was not willing to allow that as an excuse.

“I suppose you could say it is from a sloppiness point of view,” he said, “but from an attitude point of view, that’s the disappointing thing for us.

“We’ll park it now, we’ll move on. Obviously, we’ve a huge game against Dublin next week and that sharpens the mind.

“If we’d won by 24 or 25 points, similar to Tipperary did last year, it’s hard to get your mindset, so we’ll go after the lads next week.

“The goals at the end, these things will happen when you’re playing against good teams, no matter what kind of level they’ve been coming from.

“Offaly will put it up to everybody in the Leinster championship next year.”

In terms of positives, Ryan was pleased to see returning players continue their progess.

“I suppose it was nice to get Robbie O’Flynn back on the field,” he said, “it was nice to get Pádraig Power back on the field.

“I think, in fairness to Patrick Collins, he brought off a couple of great saves. I thought Mark Coleman really gave leadership to us in the half-back line, so they’re all huge positives.

“Mark is getting back into it, he’s getting better with every game that he goes out and plays, they were huge positives.”

With just a quick turnaround until the clash with Dublin, Ryan and his management team will hope to ensure that the levels of focus are where they need to be.

“In fairness, it’s about sharpening the mind,” he said, “sharpening the attitude of fellas and in fairness to the lads inside, they know themselves that that wasn’t good enough as regards where we are at.

“But look, we’ll park it now, we’ll park this game and move forward and really focus on Dublin because look, this game is over and we’ll move on.”

In the Dubs, Cork will be a facing a team looking to bounce back from a disappointing loss to Kilkenny in the Leinster final and Ryan is expecting a strong response.

“Obviously, it was a disappointing Leinster final for them,” he said, “but up to that they had a fantastic period up to that, beating Galway away, they really pushed Kilkenny hard above in Parnell Park.

“A couple of sloppy goals the last day probably took them out of the game but Kilkenny will do that to you. They have fantastic forwards, we know there’s going to be a huge challenge next week.

“They have a big strong physical team and they have a fantastic management team. There’s only probably three managers that are coaching teams at the moment that have All-Ireland medals, Micheál Donoghue is a fantastic manager, he’ll have them right next week.”

Ethan Twomey and Séamus Harnedy missed Saturday’s match, with the St Finbarr’s midfielder still sidelined by the head injury that forced him off against Tipperary while Harnedy has a slight hamstring twinge.

“Séamus will definitely be back,” Ryan said, “Ethan might be touch and go.

“He still just has a bit of a hangover from the Tipp match, Séamus just had a small slight hamstring from about two weeks ago.

“He’s in full training but we just didn’t really want to take a risk with him.”