Cork U20s' responses heartening for manager Noel Furlong

Cork U20 hurling manager Noel Furlong wouldn’t necessarily chose for his team to give themselves mountains to climb, but he has been impressed with how they have recovered.

In their opening Fulfil Munster U20HC clash with Tipperary, the Rebels went 0-6 to 0-0 down and bounced back to lead by six in the second half with 14 players before losing by two.

On Wednesday against Limerick at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the hosts were 0-5 to 0-1 behind early on but were 2-11 to 0-11 in front by the break and extended that lead to 14 points at one stage in the second half.

They ran out winners by 4-18 to 0-21, Barry Walsh scoring 2-9, and Furlong was happy with the composure shown.

“Even myself on the sideline, I was there saying, ‘We've seen this picture,’” he said.

“Often, it does take a little bit of time to settle down and once we got into our groove, we really started to play some great hurling then, and lads started to express themselves.

“It's definitely something we're going to look at, because that's two games now in a row where we haven't come out of the blocks fantastically, but at the same time, matches go like that, just the momentum, and different patches the teams have, so Limerick just got their purple patch at the start, and we took over then after that, and we really stamped our authority just before half-time.”

The win moves Cork to two points along with Clare while Tipp lead the table with four. With a break until the next match, away to a Waterford side that have lost twice, Furlong is keen to reset and refocus.

“That's the key game now for our season, that Waterford game,” he said.

“Tipp only beat them by a point, and I think they missed a penalty, and Clare only beat them by a point last week up in Clare.

“Waterford under-age hurling is on a massive high after that All-Ireland victory last year, and they have that management team after stepping up to U20, so that's going to be a colossal battle for us.

“It gives us a little bit of time now just to debrief, we've two games of evidence to work off of, and we really need to make sure that we are all guns blazing for that game, because that could be a season-decider.”