Cork boss Shane Ronayne: We didn't work hard enough against Dublin
Cork’s Aisling Kelleher with Kate Sullivan of Dublin in Saturday's league clash at Croker. Picture: INPHO/Evan Treacy
NOT quite the start that new Cork manager Shane Ronayne would have hoped for with the Cork ladies footballers.
To be fair he couldn't have asked for a tougher start, away league fixtures against Meath, the current All-Ireland champions, and Dublin, the current league champions.
In their opening tie against Meath, they were a little unlucky not to get at least a draw, but against Dublin, on Saturday night at Croke Park, they were simply beaten by a better team on the night by 2-15 to 2-3.
Cork had no answer to the power and aggressive play of Dublin and afterward, Shane admitted they were simply not good enough on the night.
“We're very disappointed, we weren't at the races in too many spots, it bordered on embarrassing at times the way we played and just shows we have a lot of work to do,” said Shane.
“We just didn't play, we didn't work hard enough. Dublin worked extremely hard and we didn't match their work rate and if you don't do that you haven't any chance against them.”
Like other games, he gave young players a chance and the display of two of them was one of the few positives Shane felt Cork could take from the tie.
“Our two huge positives out of tonight were the performances of Rachel Leahy and Dara Kinry when they came on. Dara is only out of minor and we would be very happy with them, but there were a lot of established players who didn't play well and they are going to have to take a long, hard look at themselves.
“We need to see what we (management) are doing as well, we haven't had a lot of time with them and missed out on a session during the week because of weather, but that's not an excuse we just didn't work hard enough.
“I can't put my finger on what went wrong, we had plans for their kick-outs and we didn't do it. We had plans for our own kick-outs and we didn't do it. I felt we were running around with them when we had to ball, we were marking players when we had possession.
“If you are doing that against Dublin you are wasting your time, we couldn't get the ball out. I just don't know what happened when they went out on the field. The warm-up was right, the form in the dressing-room was good, I just don't know.
“There were a lot of unforced errors there, giving the ball away easily and giving them silly frees. They are things we can work on and will have to before we face Waterford in two weeks."
