Cork senior hurling manager Pat Ryan. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
By Cian O'Connell
Despite suffering a narrow defeat, following an epic encounter, Cork manager Pat Ryan was proud of the performance his team summoned in an the All-Ireland SHC Final at Croke Park.
A compelling match went the distance at GAA headquarters with Clare eventually prevailing by the narrowest of margins, 3-29 to 1-34.
Ryan was asked did it provide any consolation that Cork came so close?. “I suppose that, sometimes, you’d say no, but, from our point of view, our job was to represent the county, represent the jersey, represent the people who came up here, paying hard money to come up to Dublin and I think the lads did that," Ryan reflected.
“The lads can be very proud of how they performed, but, at the same time, we came up here to win and we didn’t.
“We’ll lick our wounds and congratulate Clare. They’ll have a great couple of days and we’ll have a sad couple of days and fellas will go back to their clubs. We’ll regroup and see where that takes us.”
Ultimately, Ryan felt Cork weren't sufficiently clinical converting goal opportunities. “We probably didn’t take enough goal chances that we created,” Ryan remarked.
“We probably had another four or five goal chances except for the one that we did take and we needed to take them. That was probably where the game lay.”
Cork, who struck 1-8 from nine shots in the first 15 minutes, started brilliantly, but Clare responded in a dramatic opening period. “To be honest, we allowed too many short puckouts,” he responded.
“They were able to work the ball out and we lost our shape inside in the full-forward line, trying to tackle from behind.
“We just gave them too many short puckouts in the first half and they worked the ball out very well. I think their stats were very good on that, the stats on their long puckouts probably weren’t as good in the first half.
“We just gave them too many short puckouts and we lost our shape and they got back into it. But, look, there were loads of ebbs and flows in the game over the periods of time.
"They did a lot of good things that troubled us, we troubled them as well, but we’re obviously disappointed.”
