Micheál Aodh Martin: First game is huge, we are an ambitious group

Cork goalkeeper Micheál Aodh Martin is confident his team can push on this season after the narrow loss to Kerry five weeks ago.

The Rebels lost by two points in the Munster SFC semi-final after extra time at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. John Cleary’s side open up their All-Ireland Group 2 campaign tomorrow against Meath in Páirc Tailteann at 3pm.

"Look, it is what it is. The main reason we were disappointed was that we wanted to win the Munster Championship,” he says when asked about the defeat to Kerry.

“The reality is that we've been fourth seeds in the last couple of years and we know what that entails in terms of having to get big results in the group stage. The main disappointment against Kerry was being out of the Munster Championship. We wanted to win a Munster medal and we came up short.

“We obviously hit them for such a quick 1-4 after their red card and the place kind of came alive. You were kind of aware it was a great game but at the same time, you're not really in that space. You're just thinking of the next ball. Every ball kind of starts to matter a bit more.

“Our execution let us down in that first half of extra time. But yeah, you could even see in that seven or eight minutes how much ball we had with the extra man at the end of normal time and the start of extra time.

“We beat them in 2020 and subsequently didn't win the Munster Championship. The goal was to win the Munster Championship. Cork haven't won it for a long time. No member of our squad has a Munster medal. For us, it's about winning. We have no interest in getting close.” 

The Rebels make the long journey up to Navan this weekend to take on Meath in the Sam Maguire competition. Playing in that looked in doubt this year. 

There was a time just over two months ago when Cork were in a relegation scrap in the Allianz Division 2 league and even safety might not have assured top-tier championship football for this season. 

In the end, Cleary’s charges won the last two games to finish fifth. 

"You go into the league and you treat them like championship games, to be quite honest,” the Cork netminder states.

“You know what's at stake. I think the whole of Division 2 is like that. I wonder is that why maybe the rules stats were like that from Division 2. Early adopters or whatever. You're all playing for your place in Sam Maguire in Division 2. 

"It's intense and certainly when you get a couple of bad results, you know your back is against the wall. We've been in that position before, we just had to hold our heads. It's a really tight division from top to bottom. 

"Westmeath only got one draw but they were in every single game. It's such a tight division and we've been in it for a few years now. We were under pressure, but we did stick to our process, stuck to what we knew and thankfully we got the wins we needed to be in the Sam Maguire."

After Meath tomorrow, Cork welcome Kerry once again to the Páirc. That latest encounter takes place tomorrow week at 4.45pm followed by Roscommon in the final group game on the weekend of June 14 at a neutral venue.

“In the group stages in the last couple of years, we've performed reasonably well,” Martin says.

“The first game is very important and we've been here before. We know going in as fourth seeds that you're guaranteed a tough draw. You just accept that and you hit the training pitches straight after the Munster Championship. 

"It's a cliché but you do take it game by game because the first game is huge. It's an away game for a fourth seed but if you can win it, it puts you in a really good position, so you really focus on the first game.

"We're an ambitious group in that you set goals for the year and one of them was that we really wanted to try and win a Munster Championship and we fell short. So of course now the focus and the ambition shifts. 

"The ambition at the moment is to try and get out of the group. Once you achieve that, you change your ambition. That's the way it works. You definitely don't set them out into the distance. It's very much game by game."