John Cleary on beating Donegal: 'We prepared as hard as we could — and the lads delivered'

Cork manager John Cleary cut a calm but deeply satisfied figure in Ballybofey on Saturday after his side produced one of the county’s finest championship wins in years, edging Donegal 0-17 to 1-13 in a gripping All-Ireland SFC Round 2A contest.

The narrative beforehand had been dominated by the difficulty of the draw, the venue, and Cork’s supposed lack of a chance. 

Cleary, though, insisted the group never bought into any of that noise. Instead, they focused on preparation, belief, and the lessons of a long, hard season.

“When the draw was made, everyone said we got the draw from hell,” he said post-match.

“But we decided, look, eh, you know, we beaten a good Meath team the last day and we decided to prepare as hard as we could and come out here and give a performance and see where it took us. 

"You know, luckily enough to get out a one-point victory and we're delighted with that.” 

Cork’s resilience was tested early. Five points down at half-time and having conceded a gut-punch goal, the situation looked bleak.

But Cleary said the dressing room remained composed, drawing on the team’s experience of tight games and their growing confidence in their two-point scoring threat.

“Five down at half-time, the goal was a right killer. We might have been five points down but I wasn't overly disappointed at that time. We thought we'd defended heroically. We had wides and they got the goal, but like in the modern game, five points is nothing.

“We were down eight, I think, the last day against Meath, so we said look, keep chipping away and we knew we had two-point scorers… and we just said not to panic.” 

The turning point came around the 50th minute mark, when Cork’s energy, accuracy and belief grew. Cleary didn’t frame it as a dramatic shift in mindset, but rather the product of hard lessons learned earlier in the year — particularly the painful second half against Kerry in the Munster final.

“Well I don't know about a different mindset, but look, I suppose we've had a lot of close games this year in Division 2… that was part of the learning process. We felt that we were in the same position again, we might do things differently and I felt we did that today.

“You can make up five or six points and a couple of two-pointers and then you're back in the game… I felt maybe Donegal got a bit edgy coming down the home straight… we had nothing to lose.

“In the end I thought we defended heroically in both halves. I thought we were the better team actually in the second half and I think, you know, we deserved to get away with the win.” 

The outside narrative that Cork had no chance was not something Cleary used as fuel. He was pragmatic: Donegal’s form justified their favourites’ tag. Cork’s motivation came from within.

“Well I don't think it wasn't a huge motivating factor because look, the pundits were probably calling it right… the big thing was what we wanted to do was to play to our potential today. We played well and we got over the line.

“Our aim was, you know, inside the dressing room, could we get back to an All-Ireland quarter-final again. We've nothing won yet and fellas need to keep their heads down and work hard.” 

He also reserved special praise for the supporters who travelled from every corner of the county.

“Absolutely… I just mentioned inside the dressing room there, lads, wasn't it so good to give them a great day out?” 

And with ten wins from thirteen across league and championship, Cleary was clear: Cork football is moving in the right direction.

“Yeah, look, our aim was to try and get promotion, we achieved that. We have learned a lot and continued on and got another victory today.”