Tipperary v Cork: Noel Furlong draws positives from U20s' display

While Cork’s Fulfil Munster U20HC campaign opened with defeat to Tipperary on Wednesday night in Thurles, manager Noel Furlong was proud of the effort shown.

Despite being down to 14 players for the second half after a red card for John Murphy, Cork increased their one-point interval lead to six before the home side – the reigning Munster and All-Ireland champions – responded well, ultimately winning by 1-21 to 0-22.

Neverthless, Furlong found a lot of positives to take.

“You're coming up here to the All-Ireland champions in their backyard and you go down to 14 men at half-time – you could have easily thrown in the towel but you've seen the way our lads fought and battled.

“Even in the last minute there, we still had a chance to win the game, so you'd have to be very proud of them from that perspective.

“Again, it's important to know this is a league-based format, so it's important we dust ourselves down, take the learnings from it and move on because we're out next Wednesday against Limerick again, so that needs to be our focus straightaway.”

Jamie Ormond’s goal was the key score for Tipp, halving a 0-19 to 0-13 deficit and giving the Premier County to impetus to push on and outstrip Cork.

“That was completely against the run of play,” Furlong said, “we were well on top, we were winning all the 50-50 battles, we were winning all the ruck-ball.

“Physically, we were dominating the game and a soft goal – just a mistimed ball, which can happen – and Tipp have the finishers to finish those ones, so these things happen, unfortunately.

“Tipp got a bit of luck in that regard so that's the way it goes sometimes.”

That the game remained in the balance right to the end might not have been expected when Tipp scored the game’s first six points.

“Tipp have the players to do that, you know they're littered with senior stars and different things like that,” Furlong said.

“When they have their purple patch, they're going to have it, but I think we stemmed the tide after the start, we got a couple of important scores and some of our big players stood up when we needed them.

“They're all real positives and you've seen the battling qualities of our lads, they hung in there and from six down to going ahead and leading at half time, it was a great turnaround.

“At the same time, having lost a man then, it put us under serious pressure for the second half.”

However, despite the result, Furlong feels Cork have a lot of positives to draw upon ahead of the meeting with Limerick.

“We were leaving Thurles, not knowing what way we were coming in, albeit with a lot of preparation done but we know now we've a right team.

“You're playing the All-Ireland champions in their backyard, favourites for the All-Ireland, and you're with them till the last second – against a strong wind in the second half, down to 14 men and you're saying, ‘We had every chance to win that game,’ which will give us massive encouragement knowing that we can compete with any team in this competition.

“But, as I said, it's really important now that we dust ourselves down, reset, get the bodies and minds right for next week because that's going to be a colossal battle against Limerick.”