John Cleary delighted with Cork response in final quarter against Mayo

Cork football manager John Cleary felt that his team cleared a big psychological hurdle in producing a superb fightback to beat Mayo by three points yesterday.

A 1-14 to 1-11 win in TUS Gaelic Grounds was earned with an unanswered 1-6 after Tommy Conroy’s goal had put Mayo six points in front. Cork replied immediately with a goal from a penalty by Steven Sherlock and the attacker finished with 1-5.

Three was the magic number in terms of the winning margin as it gave Cork second place in Group 1, behind Kerry but ahead of Mayo in terms of points scored across the three round-robin games. The bottom line is a home preliminary quarter-final next weekend and Cleary was delighted to have recorded such a win over major opposition.

“There was a big difference between two points and three points in winning the game!” he laughed.

“All it does is takes us to another round. I think the big belief comes from beating a Division 1 team. We needed to do that and there were a lot of doubters there – and maybe we hadn’t done anything to deserve the plaudits.

“This is another little step on the journey and eventually we’d hope that Cork football would be getting into quarter-finals and semi-finals on a regular basis. But, look, that’s a long way away yet.

“We’re delighted and we’ll move on to next week.”

Six points down at a time when Cork had been outscored by 1-6 to 0-2 after leading by a point at half-time, did Cleary fear the worst?

“I know that we wouldn’t die,” he said, “but I felt that maybe Mayo might have a bit too much.

“I did feel, looking at the pitch, that Mayo were tiring a little bit and we got great impetus from the bench.

“Sometimes, when you’re that much up, you retreat a lot and I could see their line trying to get them up the field and there were holes there.

“In fairness, Colm O’Callaghan made a massive run for the penalty. We were only three points behind then and there were ten minutes left. We kept driving and we were hoping to get a draw or get over the line but the icing on the cake was to get a three-point win – maybe we’d have been heading up north next weekend if we didn’t get that.”

Cork will face a third-placed side from one of the other three groups. Cleary is hopeful that a big home support will come to Páirc Uí Chaoimh next weekend.

“In fairness, you can see it there after the game,” he said, “I even thought it started against Louth and in Páirc Uí Cahoimh against Kerry. We got support and a lot of them came here today.

“Maybe they saw something in Páirc Uí Chaoimh that the team is worth getting behind. We would love to have a big crowd next weekend in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. I can guarantee you that there's a genuine bunch of lads there who have put their shoulders to the wheel since last Christmas.

“They got their due reward today in a small sort of way, but next weekend is a big game again."