By Peter McNamara

Alan Cadogan’s excellence on Saturday night was rewarded with the Setanta Sports Man of the Match title as Cork dismissed Clare in the Allianz NHL Division 1A at Páirc Uí Rinn.

On a night when teammate Patrick Horgan raised 14 white flags including four in open play out of Cork’s tally of 1-24, Cadogan contributed 0-1.

Yet, the fact he was named the game’s MVP was testament to how devastating Cadogan’s penchant for direct running at Clare’s rearguard proved to be for the Leesiders.

Time and time again the Douglas clubman took on his direct marker and was either fouled for frees which Horgan was converting or was directly involved in the score-taking process for another teammate.

Jimmy Barry-Murphy has consistently encouraged his attackers to brazenly force defenders into errors by being positive in one-v-one situations and Cadogan certainly achieved that goal against the Banner men.

“There was a massive improvement from the lads collectively tonight,” Cadogan stressed. “We knew ourselves coming down here tonight how big of a challenge Clare represented.

“We also knew last week that we didn’t perform as a group so we understood how important it was for us here tonight to get the two points and really get the ball rolling.

“We knew ourselves that we didn’t do ourselves justice against Kilkenny.

“Thankfully though things went right for us tonight with the scores nicely spread out as well which is pleasing for us and the management.”

‘Intensity’ has been the buzzword while discussing Cork in the last 10 days and Cadogan stated the players appreciated such a commodity was in short supply in their league opener, an issue they had to address.

“We sat down, regrouped and reviewed the situation in detail after the Kilkenny match and we knew ourselves what we had to work on.

“One thing was that we didn’t bring much intensity at all to the first game but our work-rate and intensity were very good here tonight.

“Any team that brings intensity to games has a chance in every match and we are aware of that.

“We will not get carried away though.

“We have two points on the board but face Dublin next and that, in Croke Park, will be another big challenge for us,” he explained.

Another pleasing facet of Cork’s performance was their willingness to engineer goalscoring opportunities regularly with goalkeeper Patrick Kelly forced into a number of high-class saves for Clare.

“The management has said to keep taking on the man and a lot of people like to see that.

“Thankfully that worked out for us.

“People have also mentioned the importance of creating goalscoring chances and we got two so we are aware of that too,” he added.