RECENCY bias always clouds immediate match reaction, the general feeling multiplied in a positive or negative sense based on the outcome.

BY JOHNNY CAROLAN

Those who were anticipating a third straight All-Ireland final for Cork before Saturday’s semi-final were by the end lamenting the need for a total review of everything.

When it was put to manager Ben O’Connor in his post-match press conference that it would be a long way back for the county, he took a more phlegmatic approach.

‘I'm a glass half-full kind of fella,’ he said.

‘That's done and dusted. We'll be sick for that for the next few days, next couple of weeks, maybe even until Christmas.

‘Once the boys get back going again, that's all forgotten about and we're just driving on.’

Which is not to say that there won’t be a body of work to get through. O’Connor said that his team were outhurled and outworked – such ingredients can make for a lopsided outcome between two well-matched teams.

‘We've outworked teams as well this year,’ he said, ‘on days these things will happen.

‘This hasn’t happened all year, we've been fairly good on the work side of it all year. But the fellas are just a small little bit flat today for whatever reason.

‘At this level, if you're only a percentage off all the teams, they're trying to make out that there’s a gulf, a big difference in class between different teams.

‘There isn't at this level, the top four and five teams, there's only a percentage here and there, and we were off that today.’

In terms of it being a replica of the All-Ireland final defeat, O’Connor didn’t necessarily subscribe to the catch-all explanation of a mental block.

‘This is a new bunch,’ he said, ‘I suppose every one of them came up, the same as they did last year, came up to do as good as what they could today and it didn't happen for us.

‘As I said, we were outworked and we were outhurled for long periods of it, and still, with ten minutes to go, we were still in it – the last seven or eight minutes, they really took over.

‘I don't care about anything else – it's our supporters who travelled up and the 36 fellas we have below in the dressing room and all the backroom.

‘We've been meeting three, four, five nights a week since last September. I'm disappointed for them. A lot of people don't realise the time and effort that goes in – I'm looking at it with my Cork glasses on, it’s the same for every other county.

‘We'll get criticism for the next couple of days and we'll take that and drive on.’