John Cleary: A win is a win, we have an awful lot to work on

Cork manager John Cleary wasn’t overly happy despite seeing his side comfortably defeat Limerick in the Munster SFC quarter-final on Saturday evening.

The Rebels prevailed on a scoreline of 0-24 to 0-13 at the TUS Gaelic Grounds to set up a semi-final meeting against Kerry on Saturday week at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The Leesiders were in control from the early stages of this one. Nine different scorers and three clean sheets on the bounce. Limerick did have a player sent off after 24 minutes when Seán Clancy picked up a second yellow card.

“A win is a win,” Cleary said post-match.

“Conditions were kind of difficult out there with the wind. I thought we were flat at the start. We then got a few two-pointers which gave us a bit of a cushion. Limerick came back at us then. I thought they knifed through us pretty easily.

“The sending off did change the game in that I thought we played it a bit safer after the second yellow card. We had 11 v 10 going forward and we slowed it down too much at times.

“I feel we managed the game in the second half without putting them away. Other times this year, we didn’t manage the game. It was a mixed bag overall today, we did good things, but there were other parts that we wouldn’t be happy with.

“The main thing in these games is getting over the line. We will take the win and move on. We didn’t shoot the lights out and we do have an awful lot to work on for the next two weeks.” 

Cork are building a nice bit of momentum with three wins on the trot over Louth and Cavan in the Division 2 league and now Limerick in the championship. There’s no one getting carried away though.

“We had our difficulties in the middle of the league,” the Castlehaven clubman says.

“As it turned out, if we had beaten Down, which we should have, we would have probably got promoted. We are in-between challenging the top teams and being a bit behind. Two weeks’ time will tell us a lot in terms of where we are at.” 

Cork will welcome their old rivals Kerry to the Páirc on Saturday week. They ran the Kingdom close down in Killarney 12 months ago, eventually losing by three points. Can they close the gap even further this time around?

“There’s no point in beating around the bush, Kerry are at the top team in Ireland at the moment. With the new rules, they seem to have reached another level. We face a big challenge. All we can do now is learn from today, dust ourselves down and get ready for two weeks.

“We will have to be better than today and I have no doubt that we will be better than what we produced here. Whether it’s good enough to beat Kerry is another question."

Cleary has confirmed that no player currently on the injured list will be available for their game against Kerry including Luke Fahy, Kevin O'Donovan and Seán Meehan.