Michael Ryan has defended his decision to give five players their bow in Tipperary's opening-round Munster defeat to Limerick.
Goalkeeper Brian Hogan, defenders Alan Flynn and Barry Heffernan, and midfield duo Willie Connors and Billy McCarthy all made their first Championship starts as Tipp slumped to a six-point loss at the Gaelic Grounds.
The likes of Seamus Callanan, Brendan Maher and Patrick 'Bonner' Maher were unable to turn the tide as second-half substitutes.
Ryan said the form of the young players, combined with concerns over the new round-robin format and fitness of some of his 2016 All-Ireland winners influenced his decision.
"We looked at it in terms of these are the guys who are playing very well for us in training and we wanted to give them the opportunity to play," he told Tipp Fm.
"This is unprecedented territory, a round-robin Munster championship. We have to turn around week after week. Our panel will be stretched to the hilt.
"We’re constantly trying to expand our panel and give opportunities to as many players as we can.
"Some of our more experienced players were carrying carrying knocks into the last number of weeks and not at full tilt. But that is improving."
"We didn’t get the result we were looking for and we need to turn it around in the next five days"
Ryan accepted the gamble hadn't been successful but hinted it wasn't the new men who he felt had underperformed.
"We’re trying to come up with the best formula for every single game," he said.
"It didn’t work. We didn’t get the result we were looking for and we need to turn it around in the next five days.
"You put debutantes on the pitch, it’s a bit like parenting. You worry if they’ll be okay but it never turns out to be the guys you’ve been worrying about that have maybe played below the performance levels that they want."
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After a display described by Tomás Mulcahy as "the worst Tipp performance I've seen for a long, long time", they must now turn things around to face a Cork team who beat Clare first day out in Thurles this weekend.
A second consecutive defeat would make it very difficult to qualify for the knockout stages of the All-Ireland Championship but Ryan is confident his side will be stronger against the Rebels than they were in Limerick.
"Nobody goes out to play a bad match," he said. "Nobody cares more about the performance last Sunday than our group. It hurts us all.
"We don’t have a divine right to win every single game. Anybody who doesn’t realise that is not living in the real world.
"This is part of a four-week run. We didn’t have a good result in game one (but) we have loads of room for improvement.
"If we were at our max capacity last Sunday, and lost the game by six points I’d be far more concerned.
"Our destiny is still in our own hands and we’re doing everything we can to make sure we give a huge performance on Sunday."
