Cork boss John Cleary: We weren't at the races in the second half

Cork manager John Cleary was naturally a very downbeat figure after his side suffered the biggest defeat of his three-year reign on Saturday night.

The Rebels were soundly beaten by Roscommon in the Allianz Division 2 football league at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on a scoreline of 2-21 to 0-13.

With four points from five games and still two matches remaining, the Leesiders’ promotion bid for 2025 has come to an end. A relegation battle is now on the cards.

“We are very disappointed, the scoreline tells it all really,” Cleary said post-match.

“The big thing looking at the stats, we had a 25% conversion rate, Roscommon had a 78% conversion rate. What could go wrong for us, went wrong. That’s not an excuse, we were beaten by the better team on the night.

“We hit the crossbar twice and we probably gave them a penalty and the second goal. That’s not to say we would have beaten them only for those incidents. They were slicker than us and we couldn’t get to grips with their kickouts. They went to town on us from their own kickouts especially in the second half.

“At half-time, I felt we weren’t in a bad position with the way games have gone. But, after the break, Roscommon upped it. We were missing chances then at the other end and it came back to haunt us. Maybe we forced it too much then towards the end and left them in for two handy goals.” 

It was always likely that Cork’s promotion chances would boil down to back-to-back games against the two teams that came down from Division 1 last year in Monaghan and Roscommon. A seven-point loss and then a 14-point defeat shows the gap that the Rebels have to bridge with promotion now off the table for this year.

“It looks that way,” replied Cleary when asked if the prospect of promotion from Division 2 was gone.

“I think we have seven or eight or maybe nine players out injured. Again, any team can get injuries and that’s what the panel is for. It has definitely taken a bit from us. We have had to put in guys there maybe sooner than we would have hoped. But look, we have had to. You could see out there, Roscommon showed that they are a team on the go with the last four or five years. They are very experienced.

“They have very good forwards and to put up a score like that, it’s no accident really. We were well beaten and that’s just it. The table doesn’t lie, we are where we are. We just have to brush ourselves down and go again against Louth in two weeks.” 

After three weekends of games on the bounce, the Rebels head for a warm-weather training camp to the Algarve this coming week. It will give them time to reset.

“We definitely have to look at a lot of aspects both individually and as a team. The second half, we weren’t at the races. Something we had been very good on was opposition kickouts, but we got taken apart tonight.

“We will work on things now for the next two weeks and see where the injury situation is at. Brian Hurley probably isn’t too far away, others might be back training next week, but there is a big difference between going back training and playing games.” Cleary concluded.