Páirc Uí Chaoimh experience and beating Kerry will stand to Cork in championship

CORK ladies footballers got back to winning ways on St Patrick’s Day with a win over Kerry in their Lidl NFL clash at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The Kingdom had already qualified for the league final and Cork were out of the running, but it still was a game that neither side would want to lose, especially ahead of the upcoming Munster championship.

It was probably more important to Cork they won and from the off they certainly were up for this clash.

They had impressive displays all over the pitch, with Eimear Kiely getting the Player of the Game accolade, but she was well backed up by others like Hannah Looney, Melissa Duggan, Katie Quirke, Eimear Meansy, and in particular Shauna Kelly.

Sometimes Kelly doesn’t get the credit she deserves but the Araglen Desmonds Bui player was outstanding in their 1-17 to 2-6 win over their arch-rivals.

Kerry did rest a number of players with the league final in a few weeks, but Cork manager Shane Ronayne said they just concentrated on themselves and had no control over what Kerry 15 started.

Whatever team Kerry put out wasn’t within our control, all we focused on during the week was what we were going to do.

“We spent the last few weeks working on certain things in training and we implemented a lot of them. Things we haven’t been good at in the league so far this year and we are happy with that.

“We are also delighted to score 17 points as we haven’t been shooting the lights out in some games. We have been good at getting goals, missed a few again today and that’s something we have to work on ahead of the Munster and All-Ireland championships.

“But look this was a big game for us playing here and it was important to get the win and we are delighted with that.”

An aspect of Cork’s play they have been looking at in recent games was free-taking, with Doireann O’Sullivan yet to return, and Kiely stepped up to the mark against Kerry, hitting seven of her eight points from dead balls.

“We were delighted with that return from Eimear, we have been testing out a few free-takers and we had an internal game last weekend and we tried to put as much pressure as possible on them with a couple of different rules.

“And in fairness to Katie, I thought she played really well at centre-forward, maybe with the pressure of not having to take the frees off her.”

Commenting on the extra games in the league this year: “We were able to get more game time into players, some young and others coming back from injury and we are building a strong panel.

“It’s a pity there are no semi-finals in the league this year as we probably would be in one with the points we have now, but all these games are important ahead of the championships in the coming months.

“We have one league game left and we will prepare for another tough challenge in Meath next weekend."