Cork manager John Cleary admitted his side were "hurt" by their opening weekend loss to Meath and had released all their frustration in their lopsided win over Kildare in Newbridge this afternoon.
The Rebels had racked up 1-06 on the board before Jimmy Hyland finally registered Kildare's first point just before the half hour mark and the visitors led by nine at the interval.
While the home side were more competitive in the second half, any faint hopes of a comeback were completely scotched by Alex Beirne's sending off and Cork duly cranked up the pain again, Cathail O'Mahony adding a second goal in injury-time to go with Sean Powter's first half effort.
"We were hurt last week," Cleary told RTÉ Radio 1's Sunday Sport afterwards. "And the players in the dressing room were hurt.
"That was pent up and we let it all out in the first half. They were relentless in that first half, I thought.
"We were disappointed the way it turned out last Sunday. Meath came down and turned us over and deservedly so.
"So, it was back to the drawing board. We were coming down today to the lions den in Kildare. And in fairness the lads stood up to it. We hunted in packs and took our opportunities when they came.
"We got a good lead up and managed the game well in the second half.
"Look, Kildare were probably a bit off-colour today. But having said that, if they were it was up to us to take advantage of it and we did that."
While Cork shipped flak in the aftermath of the Meath loss, Cleary insisted that the team had actually done plenty right in the game and paid a heavy price for occasional lapses at the back.
"When we look back at that game, we actually did an awful lot of things right. There were probably three big moments in the game and they went Meath's way. When the game was there for the taking, Meath took it and they got their three goals.
"We were trying to remind the lads that we did a lot right last week. It was a case of keep going and learn from the mistakes. Not make them again. We didn't today and we came out on top.
"We didn't think about the pressure. We said at the start of the league that we've seven games. There was going to be ups and downs and we still have five games to go.
"We were down last Sunday but once we got back in last Wednesday, we said this was another opportunity. We'll go up there (to Kildare) people probably won't expect a lot of us.
"But we knew we had the work done. And thankfully we got off to a good start, Kildare were a bit off-colour, we took advantage and got home quite easily in the end."
For Kildare, the league looks like an uphill slog after two losses from two. Any mild positivity engendered by the narrow defeat to Dublin in Croke Park may fizzle out following this humbling on home turf.
Glenn Ryan admitted afterwards that the team was still struggling for consistency.
"It's very disappointing," Ryan told RTÉ Sport. "We would have expected a good performance, especially in front of our home crowd here. It falls way short of what we expect.
"It's been a problem for a while now, trying to get a level of consistency in our performances and today’s performance was way below – it wasn’t good enough.
"It's not a time for sitting back and feeling sorry for ourselves and hoping that things works out. You out your shoulder to the wheel and make sure that doesn’t happen again."
Such was the scale of the first half no-show, Ryan was moved into making two first-half substitutions, introducing Tony Archbold and Ben McCormack by the half hour mark.
"It's an indication of what's happening on the pitch," Ryan explained curtly afterwards. "You try to address it and hope things might change a bit."
