{"id":323981,"date":"2026-03-01T20:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323981\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T20:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T20:55:10","slug":"we-were-beaten-off-the-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323981\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We were beaten off the field’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cork boss John Cleary had no excuses after his side were beaten by Derry in the Allianz Division 2 Football League at Find Insurance Celtic Park on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Rebels lost heavily 1-31 to 0-14 as they dropped points for the first time after four wins on the trot prior to the long trip up north.<\/p>\n

The Leesiders made an encouraging start as they led by three points at one stage albeit they had the wind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were beaten off the field really,\u201d Cleary said post-match.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to be in a good position at half-time with that wind. Instead we were down four points. I thought we were very flat, just didn\u2019t come out of the blocks.<\/p>\n

\n Derry were excellent on the day. They were really up for it and they punished us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“No complaints. Beaten by a better team on the day, disappointed with our own performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s back to the drawing board now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Cork\u2019sCork\u2019s Steven Sherlock and Derry’s Gareth McKinless. Picture: INPHO\/Lorcan Doherty<\/p>\n

Derry struck for the first and only goal just before the hooter sounded for the break. It probably was the most important score of the game. It was a real confidence shifter.<\/p>\n

\u201cPossibly, yeah. We needed probably to get that goal and we didn\u2019t. That made it a huge uphill struggle in the second half,\u201d Cleary says.<\/p>\n

NO ANSWER<\/p>\n

\u201cAt times we pushed on and got opened up at the back, but in fairness Derry\u2019s interplay and their scoring was excellent. We had no answer today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to push forward and then moves broke down and we got punished. Derry bossed the midfield area from kick-outs big time. That was their platform.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cork were down a number of key players for this big promotion encounter, but Cleary didn\u2019t use that as an excuse. It did though hinder the Rebels.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have six or seven guys out. I was saying a couple of weeks ago that we had very little injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Ian Maguire was suspended, Brian O\u2019Driscoll, Se\u00e1n Brady, Tommy Walsh, Mark Cronin and Brian Hurley are injured.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not making an excuse because the guys that were out there tried their level best today, but when you take that all of a sudden out of a squad, coming up here, when you need all your experience and you need every guy pulling in the right direction, it definitely makes it harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week probably took a lot out of us. Travelling the length of the country up here, it was always going to be tough. This is probably the one weekend we didn\u2019t want to be coming here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Derry'sDerry’s P\u00e1draig McGrogan and Cork\u2019s Chris \u00d3g Jones. Picture: INPHO\/Lorcan Doherty<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a setback, no doubt about that, but Cork are still in with a shout of promotion. They have eight points after five games.<\/p>\n

LEARNING CURVE<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were on two points two years ago, we\u2019re on eight points now, so we don\u2019t want to throw all the toys out of the pram. If we can learn from this, and as I said, let\u2019s take stock of it and get a few players back. We won\u2019t always have to be coming up the length of the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were about seven hours travelling yesterday coupled with the guys we were missing. But I suppose the disappointing thing is that we were beaten by so much.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork boss John Cleary had no excuses after his side were beaten by Derry in the Allianz Division…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4365,1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-323981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gaelic-football","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}