Cork minor footballers regroup before championship push

With a successful Leinster Development League campaign behind them, the Cork minor football team are now in a lull period before picking things up again ahead of the start of the Electric Ireland Munster MFC.

The young Rebels and Kerry are both automatically through to the second phase of the provincial competition, awaiting two qualifiers from the round-robin between the other four counties.

They are not in championship action until April 27 and so, while Saturday’s loss to Kildare in a 90-minute challenge match at MTU looked disappointing on paper, manager Keith Ricken feels that it can stand to them as they face into the second part of the season.

“Kildare are playing minor championship next week, so they were at a higher pitch than us, whereas we were looking at fellas and trying guys in different positions,” he says.

“You have to try things because, when you're in these games, week-in, week-out, sometimes it's hard.

“It's good for them to see how they cope with a result like that and that’s good, that’s fine.

We have a good bunch and I’m very happy with them so far.

“They'll take this in their stride and they'll lick their wounds and they'll be back training with a bit of buzz next week again. Last week is over now.”

The next few weeks for Cork will involve a tough block of training as well as giving the players time to line out with their clubs, before building up again for the championship.

“We've had a very good league and we'll have to taper off now again,” Ricken says.

HARD WEEK

“We'll have another hard week of training this week and the following week, they'll go back out to their clubs for a few days, which is important too.

“After that, we’ll have a four-week run-in to the championship, so we’ll tidy up then and sort out a few bits and pieces.”

The 0-22 to 1-12 loss on Saturday gave Cork things to work on but, by and large, Ricken was satisfied with the opportunity to experiment in a non-competitive setting after the exploits in the Leinster league.

“We’ve played a good number of games this year and that was our first defeat,” he says, “which is good too, it brings them down to earth a small bit after last week.

“It’s no harm to ground them, they have to find out themselves where they're going and what they want to do, but, overall, they're a very committed bunch.

“This week, too, we had a hard week of training. 

We’re doing a lot of good things and we have our structure right and stuff, so we just wanted to try new things and that's okay.

“We're not conceding goals, but we conceded 22 points and we know that was disappointing. We kicked a couple of two-pointers early but it didn't come easy after that and then when you take the foot off the gas, it's sometimes hard to get it back on.”