No point in Cork dwelling on past, says Eoin Downey

Given the relatively quick turnaround from the Munster SHC final defeat to Limerick, Cork didn’t have much time to feel sorry for themselves, even if they had wanted to.

Yesterday’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Offaly was just a fortnight after the Rebels had ceded their provincial crown to the Shannonsiders, who were able to avail of a four-week gap before their semi-final, which will be against Clare on Sunday, July 5 following the Banner’s win over Dublin on Saturday night.

While Cork are now confirmed to face Galway on Saturday, July 4, they had to get past Offaly to secure that date and there could be no complacency or navel-gazing in the wake of the Limerick defeat.

In Eoin Downey’s mind, refocusing for the next challenge was not a difficult thing, though.

“Look, at the end of the day, it's only a match in the past, you can't change what happened in the Munster final,” he said.

“I think fellas like to talk about the past a lot – fellas talk about the All-Ireland final from last year for no reason, it’s done, no point talking about it.

“After the Munster final, it was time to reset and drive on and likewise today, we move on to the Galway game.”

Cork backed up their status as favourites from the off and their supremacy was never in any doubt. While Downey accepted that the overall performance tailed off in the second half, overall he was happy.

“Definitely, because a win's a win,” he said.

“We started off very well in the first half – we aimed to do that, to put the balls in the back of the net, but I think we died off a bit in the second half, which we weren't too happy with.

“We lost a few breaks and started messing around with the ball a small bit, but we finished out the game strong enough and I'm happy with that.”

Helping Cork was the depth that allowed them to make five changes during the second half without weakening the side – ideally, there will be even more options for the semi-final.

“Yeah, definitely,” Downey said.

“Look, there's always competition inside our squad, that's kind of the point of it all.

“As you can see, Alan Walsh, Hugh [O’Connor] and Brian Roche came in from the start today, so you can see there's fierce competition within the group.

“We had Fitzy [Darragh Fitzgibbon] and Rob [Robbie O’Flynn] back for today and hopefully we should have Tim [O’Mahony] and Tommy [O’Connell] back for the semi-final, which would be brilliant.”

Every available body will be required on Saturday week against the Leinster champions, who impressed in beating Dublin to claim the Bob O’Keeffe Cup. To that end, Cork must be keyed in quickly, as they were for Offaly.

“We do the same thing with this game that we did for the Munster final,” Downey said. we go in, assess it, take the positives and negatives and just drive on, just forget about it.”