Ronan Curran: Important to bite tongue to avoid sideline dissent calls

Usually, one of the last pieces of advice to a team heading out on the pitch is to avoid giving away silly frees – now, managements have to be just as wary.

The weekend of the Allianz Hurling League Division 1 finals was the first where a new sideline dissent rule was in operation, similar to the one which came in as part of the football changes last year.

As Cork prepare for Sunday’s trip to Thurles to take on Tipperary in their Munster SHC opener, selector Ronan Curran admits that greater care needs to be taken on the bench.

“I suppose I looked at myself a small bit because I'd be fairly animated on the line, as you lads probably know!” he laughed.

“Yeah, I suppose you just have to be wary of it, and if you're preaching it to the players, you have to do it yourself and make sure you aren't caught for that, but it's just watching yourself. 

DRIVING ON

“We all feel a few decisions might have gone against us and stuff like that, it's about biting the tongue and just driving the players on more than anything else.”

Ben O’Connor’s side come into the game on the back of a six-point loss to Limerick in that league final – is it easier to park when the turnaround is so quick and Tipp was always on the horizon?

“It is and it isn't,” Curran said.

It is in that way that we always knew the game we're looking at is the Tipp game in the first round of the championship. That's always our focus.

“Obviously, the league was great to get a look at fellas, get a bit of a run going, get to know the lads a bit better, kind of formulate any gameplans that we might have and stuff like that, but we always knew that Tipp in Thurles is the one we're looking at.

“We have to take massive learnings from it, obviously, from whatever failures we had on the day and bring them forward, but playing Limerick is a totally different game to playing Tipp. They are two different styles and so on, but there's still learnings in both, and learnings about players and stuff like that.

“It’s disappointing to not get the victory, but then again, I suppose as Ben said, we've got a good bit out of the league as well, so we have to look at that as well.”