Joe Carroll concedes Cork struggled to deal with Tipperary system in shock loss

It was a disappointing night for the Cork senior ladies footballers on Saturday night in the opening round of the TG4 Munster senior championship.

In their first outing since winning the league they lost out to Tipperary, in a game they would have been expected to win to get their Munster campaign off to a winning start.

But full credit to Tipp they were the better side on the night and were deserving winners by 0-11 to 0-9 in a low-scoring game.

They came with a game plan and they executed it superbly, crowding the D and then breaking at pace to score themselves. Cork found it difficult to break down their defensive shape and that was shown by the fact only three of their points came from play, the other six were frees scored by Katie Quirke.

Speaking after the game manager Joe Carroll said he was disappointed with the performance and they had a lot of work to do ahead of their clash with Waterford next Sunday.

“We'll have to sit down and maybe have a look at the video and see where we are, where we made mistakes and things like that,” said Carroll.

“We struggled all night to deal with the Tipperary system. They dropped the players very much behind the ball. It was, I suppose you could call it negative in a way, but it worked. And when it works, you know, they had it sized up fairly well.

They had probably seen a bit more of us than we have had of them and they were very fit and they ran a lot with each other.

“We had a lot of kind of half chances even at the very start which could have changed the trajectory of the game. We had maybe one, if not two goal chances, in the first half and we didn't take them and when you don't take your chances at this level you get punished.”

BACK TO EARTH

When Cork won the league there was a lot of celebrating but Carroll was quick to say afterwards that they will see where they are come the Munster and then the All-Ireland Championship.

Despite the league win this is still a team in transition the loss is a bit of a reality check for them.

“Obviously there is a reality check and like our character is going to be tested over the next week to see can we get a performance maybe to put it up to Waterford, one of the contenders for the Munster championship.

“When you looked at it at the start of the year, maybe a contender for the All-Ireland as well.

“They started the league very well, so we've a lot of work to do in this space of a week to get the girls right and see how we react.”

Carroll Just finally, obviously disappointment tonight, but can you build on what, if you can eradicate the mistakes, are there things that you can build on from this performance?

“There is probably is a lot of things we can build on, and I may suppose maybe take our chances at the start of games is going to be vitally important for us.

“We didn't take our chances today, and maybe that would help with that. When you are playing a team that are pulling a lot of players behind the ball you have to take whatever chances you get up front.

“I thought there was a bit of panic maybe towards the end as well. 

We missed a few chances there when we were trying to go for glory rather than maybe tapping the ball over the bar and just keep the scoreboard ticking over.

“It would have come and to be fair in the last three or four minutes we were the team that was doing all the pressing so look hopefully we can try and rectify something for next week.”