Brian Lohan pleased by Clare response to Limerick setback, Cork boss Pat Ryan defiant

Pat Ryan insisted that Cork will not “fall on our sword” as they face another early exit from the Championship.

A 3-26 to 3-24 defeat to Clare in front of 36,814 at SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh on the back of losing to Waterford seven days earlier means that Cork must beat both Limerick and Tipperary in their remaining Munster round robin games and hope results elsewhere fall their way.

The visit of the four-in-a-row All-Ireland champions to Leeside on the back of their 15-point demolition of Tipperary looks particularly daunting now, however.

READ MORE:Cork boss Pat Ryan on latest setback - 'It wasn’t a dirty game, there was too many yellow cards'

Ryan said: “Listen, we had a fantastic crowd here today. I thought the lads represented the Cork jersey way better than we did last week. We have Limerick coming in in two weeks time. What are we going to do, fall down on our sword?

“We have to get ready to go against Limerick next week. In fairness to the lads, it will probably be easier to get them up after this game than it was last week because it was an abysmal performance below in Waterford whereas today was a much better performance. But at the end of the day, we are only interested in winning. That didn't happen.”

Ryan made six changes to the starting line-up after the Waterford defeat but ultimately didn’t get the result as his side finished with 14 men once again, while they conceded 0-9 from frees as indiscipline hurt them.

“We didn't win. That is the bottom line. It was more the attitude of the players in the way we went out. We were definitely more up to it. We took the game to Clare from day one.

“Down in Walsh Park last week, we let Waterford dictate the game. I thought we were dictating the game for an awful lot of that game today. But you are up against a quality side.

“Our discipline left us down a small bit. Even our discipline regards we gave too many frees to a top-class freetaker in Aidan McCarthy. That was the disappointing part for us.”

Clare manager Brian Lohan acknowledged that “there was a lot of pressure on” after losing at home to Limerick in dramatic fashion the previous Sunday.

He said: "Look, there's no shame in losing a game but it was just the nature of the loss and the disappointment. Since you're six years of age, you're told as a defender to block the ball and to mark your man.

“Those are things that we didn't do and that's how we conceded those three goals late. It was very disappointing to be at that level of hurling, at that pitch, against the opposition that we were up against and not to do the basics. That was really disappointing."

It looked like their season was unravelling completely when Cork took a seven-point lead shortly after half-time.

“I thought we worked hard in the first half. To come in at 0-14 to 0-12, I was happy enough with that. I thought we worked through the game and Cork really attacked the first few minutes in the second half.

“They got a really good goal and they put on a couple of points afterwards. It was big for us to respond to that."

Star man Tony Kelly, who made his first appearance of the season off the bench against Limerick after a long-term ankle injury, was not part of the matchday 26 this time and Lohan added: "He's working away with the physios. He's doing what he can. We were hoping that he'd be right today but he just wasn't."

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