Cork ladies footballers face tough opener against Kerry in Munster Championship at Cloughduv
Emma Cleary takes on Ciara Murphy of Kerry during their league clash last season. Cleary will be one of the players that Cork will look to tomorrow.
Cork get their TG4 Munster Senior Ladies Football championship underway tomorrow against Kerry.
They will take on the Kingdom at Cloughduv, throw-in 2pm, in a game they will be considered underdogs in, with few expecting Cork to win.
Recently the Rebels lost to Galway in the Lidl Division Two League final, while Kerry destroyed Armagh in the Division 1 decider.
That means that, at present, Kerry are the league, Munster, and All-Ireland champions and it is difficult to see who will dethrone them.
They are hot favourites to retain their Munster title and it’s difficult to see who will stop them adding the All-Ireland as well.
Cork will be looking to bounce back from that league final loss to Galway tomorrow and manager Joe Carroll said they are well aware of the challenges ahead of them.
“It's something to look forward to again, and I suppose in every match when you lose it, there's always another game coming up,” said Carroll, “even though it’s Kerry, league and All-Ireland champions, and I would say favourites to win the All-Ireland again this year from what we saw in Croke Park last Saturday week.
“So it's going to be a huge challenge for us to try and defeat them in the first match.
“I suppose Cork, Waterford, Kerry is the most likely threesome of the two finalists to come from.
“Where for many, many years that have just been Cork and Kerry's in the mix, now the others have stepped up as well.
“I wouldn't rule out Tipperary causing a bit of an upset either. I was very impressed with them in the league. I know we beat them by seven or eight points in the finish. But it was a very, very close match. They could have been a bit further ahead at the start.
“They will have improved and there is a share of them playing with UCC that I know well.
“They have a home game against us and I wouldn’t rule them out either. Waterford looked very impressive in the league and we are away to them as well so it’s going to be a competitive championship.
“We had patches of very good football during the league and then we had patches of maybe lapses as I would call them with costly errors and we need to try and cut them out, especially against the top teams where they will punish you.
“We have been working on them in training ahead of tomorrow and the other games as we know we will be punished by Kerry and the others in the championship if we do."
App?
