Dublin joint-manager Paul Casey said the team will turn their full attention to the championship after suffering relegation to Division 2 of the Lidl National Football League, admitting that the Metropolitans only had themselves to blame for dropping from the top tier.
The reigning TG4 All-Ireland champions defeated Cork, who were already through to this year's final against Galway by 2-08 to 1-06, but it wasn’t enough to prevent them making the drop along with Kildare.
"Ultimately you get from the whole National League what you deserve," said Casey. "We did our part today. We had to beat Cork and we were delighted to get out with the win, particularly now with the championship around the corner.
"Ultimately the results didn’t go our way, but that’s all for next year and we’re fully focused on the Leinster Championship in five weeks’ time.
"Delighted with a couple of performances towards the end of the National League. We definitely saw the experienced players coming back in and adding something. We got to see lots of players get lots of game time over the course of the seven games. Hopefully now they can bring some of that form into the championship."
Cork’s Rosie Corkery said they can learn a lot from the game as they prepare to face Galway in the final in what will be a repeat of last year’s Lidl Division 2 final, which was won by the Connacht champions.
"We weren’t shy about the fact we wanted to keep the 100% unbeaten record, but it didn’t work out for us today," she said.
"In the first half we were a bit flat-footed. We had a long journey up this morning. We improved as the game went on, so there’s learnings and there’s a few positives to take from the game as well today.
"We’re really looking forward to the league final. At the start of the year, people thought we’d be in the bottom two of the league. Looking forward to a league final now and a chance to get some silverware into Cork. Focused on that for the next few weeks."
