Cork U20s 'devoid of energy' in Louth defeat 

Cork football has been up against it for quite some time now, especially at senior level. The win over Louth offered some relief.

But unfortunately for the Cork U20 side, Sunday’s defeat to the Wee County couldn’t have been further from relief.

Conceding five goals is never a good look. It’s made even worse when the result is a 17-point beatdown.

A result that stung Cork at a time when they could have done without it. Nonetheless manager Ray O’Mahony isn’t overly concerned, despite the awkward timing.

“I'm not going to say it caused me concern, because I was hoping to get a performance there,” he begins. “Especially in the public eye.

“We just dust ourselves down, and go again. We’ve two weeks to championship and we could be playing one of four teams on April 1.

“We're very disappointed with the performance. We didn't get up to the intensity levels of Louth,” he explains. “We were devoid of energy at times.

We trained really well during the week and then we were flat, definitely at the start of it.

“You look at the first half, the first six minutes, we concede the two goals and then in the last five minutes of the first half, another two goals. They're chasing the game big time then.

“In between the middle of that, it didn't look pretty,” O’Mahony admits. “The score didn't look pretty. But we actually did reasonably okay. In terms of what we were trying to do.

CHANCE

“Even if it was 2-8 to 0-8 at half time, you were still within a chance, especially with the new rules. The 12-point gap there was a bit of a stretch. The goals conceded were the difference at the end of the day.” 

Cork quickly found themselves chasing the game, with their defensive frailties ruthlessly exposed by a Louth team looking to prove a point. Cork could have done more – they should have.

But Louth were a well-drilled side and they showed that.

“We didn't sense the danger from deep positions. They broke the lines.

“Our decision making in those moves defensively, was just maybe wrong at times, but they're a very good team.

“One poor performance doesn't make us a poor team.

“If that game was up in Carlow or Portlaoise yesterday, no one would have known the difference,” he says. “The previous week we played another inter-county team, we won by 18 points.

The previous week of that we played another top team and we won that by a couple of points.

“We've been going very well. We did try a few new things yesterday. That didn't work out, but perhaps these are the games to try them in.” Cork tried. Cork failed.

Lessons can be learned, it’s a chance to improve. The result may have been an ugly one in many respects – but the best teams are those that can power on after a defeat like that. They can take some solace in the fact Louth are a good team.

“Louth have three players on the U20s that were in with their senior team up to a week or two ago.

“They had eight starters from the team that got beaten in the Leinster final last year. There's a couple of lads on the squad there that are under the watch of some AFL clubs.

“Apparently there were some scouts there yesterday,” O’Mahony adds. “They are a really good outfit and I have no doubt they would be giving the Leinster championship a serious battle this year.

“They are very powerful athletic players. They were coming through us, they were hard to stop at times.

“When we didn't stop those runners coming from deep, we were under a bit of pressure. From a scoring efficiency perspective, Louth had only one more scoring chance in the whole game than we had.

“They were 70% on their efficiency, we were 40%. We were very poor in our efficiency. It wouldn't be normally that bad, but it just happens to teams.

“Sometimes it might be 60, 70%. You saw the seniors – they were 70% and that was the difference.”