Cork selector: ‘They outmuscled us but the surface didn't help’
Both managements referred to the playing surface after yesterday’s game in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, with Cork selector Donal O’Mahony not mincing his words.
“There’s no secret about it, the surface was tough. Especially the way we play, we want to play fast hurling and then the ball is getting stuck and things like that.
“They’d be physically stronger than us so it probably suited their gameplan a bit more than ours. I thought they outmuscled us at times but definitely the surface didn’t help.”
Winning manager Davy Fitzgerald of Wexford said he and his team had expected the playing surface to be poor.
“That depends on your mindset. We knew before the game that the surface was pretty bad, and you can see that we knock the ball around pretty okay, whether it’s ball to hand or on the ground.
“We made up our minds that no matter what the surface was like - you’re coming down thinking things will be pretty good, the stadium is incredible and I love it, so it’s a pity about the top of the surface.
“It’s actually quite solid, I don’t know why it’s tearing on top as much as it is.
“Even when I was a player one place I loved coming was down here.
“They need to have a look at it, I’m sure they’ll get it right.”
O’Mahony said Cork would try to take the positives from the defeat: “I thought Tim O’Mahony played very well at centre-back. It’s a position we’re looking at, Tim played a lot of league games there last year and he played very well today and he added to the scoring from the half-back line; he got two good points in the first half.
“Declan Dalton did well when he came on. We thought Declan did well enough last week against Kilkenny but we’re just trying to give other fellas a chance as well.
“When he came on, he held up the ball inside, which we weren’t doing, and that was a different option for us.
“Aidan Walsh did well, he showed really well, he was really honest in the first half. Our challenge is to get the best out of the fellas we have. We’ll go back and we’ll train hard, we went through a similar pattern last year, we struggled in the league, definitely the better conditions and the harder ground suit us better.”
Fitzgerald was happy with the win: “We’re working on different things but victory was nice for us today.
“We felt we weren’t one hundred miles away from Limerick last week, we got a shot at the posts with the last play of the game last week and Limerick were really up for it.
“So two games, one win, we can’t complain.”
