Clare the better side on the day, says Cork minor manager Fergal McCormack

Cork minor manager Fergal McCarthy had no complaints with the outcome in Sunday’s Electric Ireland All-Ireland MHC semi-final defeat to Clare but couldn’t fault the effort of his team.

The Rebels fell to a two-point defeat, 0-27 to 1-22, in Thurles, and McCormack acknowledged how impressive Clare were in securing a place in the final against Waterford.

“They just had the edge and it could have gone either way,” he said.

I still had belief in our fellas up to the last minute, because we have good characters and good leaders in the group.

“But I think, to be fair, I think Clare were just slightly better on the day. They crowded us out around the middle and they got a few turnovers.

“They played the ball well coming out of the back line in triangles and worked it well.

“We found it difficult and they were just good. They were good and we just couldn't get into our free-flowing kind of game, as was normal in the previous couple of games.”

The game was Cork’s first since defeating Waterford at FBD Semple Stadium on May 16, while Clare – who finished third in the provincial table – had benefited from an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final win over Dublin before seeing off Galway in the quarter-finals.

While not pointing to that as the reason his side lost, McCormack felt that the first-half display by Cork could have been due in part to the period of inactivity.

“Yeah, possibly,” he said.

“We were kind of half-saying at half-time that maybe the ring-rustiness was gone and we'd push on.

“We went up point or two in the second half but, to be fair to Clare, they came back and they obviously have a good spirit inside their camp. They needed it and they pushed on.

“It's hard to know [regardling the layoff]. We had four weeks off, we felt we managed it well.

SERIOUS GAMES

“But look, we won five out of six games, that's a fantastic kind of run. I was saying to someone else, the format is really, really good for 16-, 17-year-olds to get this exposure to serious games is brilliant.”

To that end, a last-four defeat need not define how good or bad a year it was as a whole, with McCormack able to take far more positives than negatives from the campaign.

“There's no-one who goes through their sporting life winning everything that they take part in,” he said.

“Our fellas won a very, very competitive Munster Championship and got to an All-Ireland semi-final and were beaten by a narrow margin.

“But, I think more than anything else, they learnt about being a good person and a good team-mate and having a good culture inside the group.

“If that's what success is measured in, then I think we've got that in our group.”