Cork boss Pat Ryan blasts ‘disappointing performance’ in win over Offaly as Rebels make it to All-Ireland SHC quarter-finals

Cork manager Pat Ryan didn’t hide his disappointment with his team's performance after they defeated Offaly by nine points to reach the All-Ireland quarter-finals, where they will face Dublin on Saturday next.

“Obviously, it was a disappointing performance from our side of it,” he said.

“There were some good passages of hurling and we opened them up at times but it was just very sloppy – not breaking the tackle enough, throwing balls over our heads that weren’t there and we didn’t hard enough on what we should have done.

“In fairness to Offaly, they were very good, they were very well set-up. You could see they had momentum behind them in the way the county is going at the moment and they tore into our fellas.

“Like any inter-county team, if you don’t match them with energy and with workrate, the game is going to be tight.”

He was asked if the four-week gap may have been a factor after his side's 4-25 to 3-19 win in Tullamore.

“I suppose you could say it is from a sloppiness point of view but from an attitude point of view, that’s the disappointing thing for us.

“We’ll park it now, we’ll move on. Obviously, we’ve a huge game against Dublin next week and that sharpens the mind.

“If we’d won by 24 or 25 points, similar to Tipperary did last year, it’s hard to get your mindset, so we’ll go after the lads next week.”

He was impressed with Offaly’s refusal to fall away.

“The scores they got, I think we responded well in putting the ball over the bar.

“We got scores at the right times but, from our side of things, it was very sloppy. As I said, it gives us an opportunity to go after the lads next week.”

He said be believed that Offaly “will put it up to everybody” in the Leinster championship next year.

Offaly manager Johnny Kelly explained that Adam Screeney and Colin Spain who featured in the McDonagh Cup final a week before had tried to change their holiday plans after missing the county’s All-Ireland preliminary quarter final.

“Unfortunately for those guys that was booked way before they were even on the senior panel and they actually did work to change their plans but such was the nature of the accommodation that they couldn’t. They’ve given everything to Offaly so they took their break and we were happy to let them do so.”

Kelly declared himself pleased with the performance, but felt they could have scored more goals with Oisin Kelly twice denied by Patrick Collins although he put one past the Cork goalkeeper in the second half.

“We are happy with the performance, we are disappointed that we didn't get closer to Cork,” said the Offaly manager a week after winning the McDonagh Cup.

“We got them back on Tuesday night and we had a plan for Cork and we fine-tuned it last night. Not all of it worked. But some of it did. We lost a lot of our puck outs in the first half, we seemed to get a bit better in the second half but overall it's a quick turnaround.

“We tried to win out own puck outs and stop Cork breaking back up the field. No better team to run at you from 100m, they can absolutely rip you open, which they did, but overall we managed that aspect of the game for enough time to give us a chance ourselves.

“We scored 3-19. To be honest if we'd taken more of those goal chances that could have been 5-22, 5-23. We would probably have taken that had you said it at the start.”

Offaly were annihilated last year when beaten by 32 points by Tipperary in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter finals. This was a vast improvement.

“We need more players,” said Kelly. “We need some of those young fellas to come through, to strengthen up. They’ve given us great energy. We need some of the older players to stay with it. They’re not going to go, it’s quite a young team.”

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