Brian Hurley says that massive sacrifices are being made by modern day inter-county GAA players and called for more help for referees so that they can get more decisions correct.
Hurley kicked four points from play, before seeing his last kick of the game shot tipped onto the post by goalkeeper David O'Hanlon, as the Rebels lost out to Dublin in an entertaining Allianz League Division 2 clash at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday.
There were plenty of talking points to emerge from the game, with the return of Jack McCaffrey after nearly three years out, as well as Hurley's late effort staying out with the help of the upright, amongst them.
On the way out of the ground afterwards though one topic could be heard being discussed by supporters in both red hats and blue, and that was the sendings off.
First a relatively innocuous looking tug of the jersey saw Ian Maguire receive a second yellow. A foul, absolutely, but the anger in the stand suggested that followers of Cork didn't feel it warranted a second yellow.
That was followed by the sending off of Lee Gannon for Dublin as the defender smashed into Sean Powter, after clearing the ball, and was also shown a second yellow.
Maguire has since spoken to the media explaining that it was his error and that he had committed a third serious foul, but it doesn't take away from the sense that we might be seeing far more red cards in the summer if the rules are applied to the letter of the law.
These were sentiments echoed by Hurley.
"You said it was soft, I'd say it was soft as well, to be honest," he said speaking at an Allianz event.
"The two of them were [soft]. At the end of the day, whatever the referee decides, we still had chances after that and before that. We cost ourselves in the result, which we had control over.
"It's easy to say the ref had a bad day, or not, but if you're ever given the whistle down in the club and there's 30 players running around, shouting and roaring at you - without any pressure or TV audience looking at you - there's enough in that.
"Probably something needs to be done to help them on that side of it. It's just unfortunate that it happened last week and there was a lot of noise made about it."
Pushed on whether technology, such as video assistance, could be the answer for inter-county GAA referees, Hurley added: "There's a point of view - whatever about last week, and I don't want to get into too much detail - but if there are wrong decisions made...
"I just can't highlight enough the amount of effort we put into it from our side. Players, just say in an All-Ireland final, if he was wrong done by, it's very unfortunate with the amount of sacrifice that player has made for the whole year.
"Again, that's above my head, I'd probably have no say on it anyway, but from a players' point of view, the sacrifices that inter-county players make nowadays is fairly frightening."
Sunday's defeat for Cork left them with just two points from their opening three games, and looking over their shoulders somewhat with four rounds of fixtures to play in Division 2.
With no guarantees that a side finishing in the bottom two in the second tier will compete for Sam Maguire in the summer, there's plenty at stake for the Rebels ahead of back-to-back Munster derbies against Limerick and Clare.
"I don't think we'll be boxing clever, you go out and try to win the game," Hurley says of the games against two counties Cork will need to beat if they want to reach the provincial decider later in the year.
"Championship will look after itself in the time it comes. We've to put full focus on this weekend. We've one win out of three, so this weekend is big for us.
"We need two points. Full focus will be on the game, what we can do to win. Anything after that, Clare in Munster, whatever, it'll all be about performing and getting the most out of ourselves."
And there was encouragement despite the defeat on Sunday.
Dublin are seen by some as the biggest challengers to Kerry's hold on Sam Maguire this summer. The Kingdom had 12 points to spare on Cork in Munster last summer, and that was followed by an 11-point victory for the Dubs over the Rebels in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
So the two-point gap, while allowing for the fact that it was a league game, represents progress for Cork, who could have won the game with some better finishing, according to Hurley.
"We had 15 wides, we were probably down a man for 12 minutes which allowed Dublin to get back into the game," he points out.
"There were other opportunities. We probably had five goal chances over the game and only took two of them.
"I think we learned a lot from it. If we had got the win we might have brushed over it. That's probably what the league is about. You'd like to win and what not, but if you can find enough out about yourself then it will benefit you down the line."
Listen to the RTÉ GAA Podcast on the RTÉ Radio Player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
