Cork boss 'thought it was gone'

Team manager Eamon Ryan admitted that Cork were fortunate to claim a fifth TG4 All-Ireland ladies senior football championship crown at Croke Park on Sunday but paid huge tribute to the character of his players.

Ryan revealed: 'Dublin would consider themselves very unlucky but on the other side of it, we had players playing with antibiotics.
'Juliet (Murphy) was very sick, Briege Corkery was very sick. They were with Doctor Con (Murphy) on Wednesday night.'

Ryan looked at the scoreboard with eight minutes remaining and revealed that he uttered an expletive at that point, believing that the game was gone from the Leesiders as they found themselves two points behind.

He added: 'It wasn't the management that got us through. It was the players because I honestly thought, looking at the clock with eight minutes left, that it was gone.

'All credit to the players, I don't know where they got it from. I shifted Juliet back to centre back and she came out roaring at me, she wanted to go back to centre field. And she made two or three great forays. The last eight minutes was down to the players.'

Five second half points from Valerie Mulcahy proved crucial as the Leesiders edged a tight final and Ryan reflected: 'Valerie would be the first to admit that her first half wasn't great. There were exchanges at half time but that's Valerie. She is one of the best footballers. With the ball she's superb.'

Attempting to pinpoint the secret of Cork's remarkable success, Ryan mused: 'I've no secret anyway. Trying to analyse it, we were lucky enough to get eight or nine girls who had never won anything at underage and then we got eight or nine that had won a lot. The gelling of those two worked.

'The older group were keeping the younger group in check. The younger ones then abided by the guidelines that the older girls laid down. Our role in that wouldn't be hectic. It was the two groups gelling and having mutual respect for each other.

'We know that the last game, every morning we get up, is getting nearer. So the drive is within the team to push that last game. That would be what is going through their heads. Let's push it back, we have to push it back, rather than thinking five in a row.'