Joe Carroll reflects on beating Mayo, injury to a key player and facing Dubs

No sooner had Cork defeated Mayo in their TG4 All-Ireland ladies football clash and the players were gathered around a phone. Ironically they were standing in the middle of the pitch tuned into the quarter-final draw, which was happening just metres away on one side of the pitch.

Their game at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park had been live on TG4 and the draw was done soon after the game.

Cork knew they could only draw one of four sides and they were in the second matchup, which now sees them face Dublin the weekend after next.

It had certainly been a busy day for Cork manager, Joe Carroll, and there was a lot to take in afterwards.

For a start, there was the vital win that kept their championship season alive, on a 3-8 to 1-10 victory, but also there was the difficult draw and as importantly the injury to Shauna Kelly.

First reflecting on the draw Carroll said: “I suppose with a couple of minutes to go with a tight three-point lead, I'd have taken anyone at all at that stage.

“But look we always knew the draw was going to be difficult, because we were going to be taking on one of the group winners.

“So look we'll just have to get ourselves ready for two weeks against Dublin, an exceptionally good team, and are going very well. I suppose maybe they drew with Waterford away from home though and they won the Leinster championship as well. So we have a good bit of work to do to beat them.

“There's great history going back over many years from the time that looked like they had Dublin had won at half time and with 15 minutes to go were still ahead.

“Valerie Mulcahy (now a Cork selector), was involved in that game as Cork from behind to win. So there's great tradition in it and Dublin took over from Cork as the dominant team for a few years. 

We’ll look forward to it now in two weeks.”

In the first half a clash of Cork players, all trying to stop a goal, saw Shana Kelly go off injured and Carroll said that she had been taken away by ambulance with what appeared to be a facial injury and it would take a bit of time to see how she was, but he hoped it wasn’t as bad as it looked from the sideline.

CRUCIAL

On the game itself, Cork’s three goals proved to be crucial scores in their win.

“The goals were crucial scores, we felt in the first half that we started fairly well and played fairly. But I thought at times we rushed the play a small bit, and we got our kicks blocked down a few times and took a few shots with ball going into the goalies hands and things like that that we needed have.

“That's something we need to work on, we were a bit better at it in the second-half and I suppose there was a period there where we were well in control and then we conceded the goal again.

“They had a tactic of pumping the ball in high and it worked and it was difficult but their full-forward was six foot two and it’s difficult to curb that. But there look we got there in the finish and can look forward to the Dublin game now.”