They had a feeling, the Corkmen. As they boarded the short flight up to Derry before bussing it to Ballybofey, John Cleary and his backroom team had a sense they may be meeting Donegal at the perfect time.<\/p>\n
Jim McGuinness’ side had looked imperious – and a little bit frightening – in dismantling All-Ireland champions Kerry in Killarney<\/a> three weeks ago. And Cleary reckoned – correctly, as it turned out – that replicating that performance would be tough ask for the Ulster side.<\/p>\n \u200a”When the draw was made, we knew it was going to be difficult coming up here,” Cleary told RT\u00c9 Sport after his side’s dramatic come-from-behind victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n “But we felt that our second half against Meath was as good as anyone who played in the country this year.<\/p>\n “And we felt then that maybe Donegal might be a slight bit off guard after their performance in Killarney.<\/p>\n “It’s very hard to keep rolling on performances, one after the other. We came with a plan, we were disappointed slightly the way we played the first half – and we were still only five points down.”<\/p>\n If Cleary felt his side were lucky to be only slightly in arrears at the turnaround, the gusting breeze at their backs for the second 35 also proved a welcome ally as they two-pointed their way back into the game.<\/p>\n “We felt we had the small bit of a breeze and, you know, to keep chipping away,” Cleary said. “A couple of great two-pointers there in the second half put them under pressure. It’s harder to play when you’re under pressure.<\/p>\n “They were under a small bit of pressure the second half. I thought our defence was outstanding – in the first half and the second half.<\/p>\n “We had a deserved victory, just about held up. They’re a fabulous team. They’ll have a big say in the championship yet.<\/p>\n “But we’re delighted to get a victory like this, coming up the road here to do it here today.”<\/p>\n Cork football has been a curious beast for most of the past decade and a half. Since winning their last Sam Maguire in 2010, a sole Ulster title two years later is their lot.<\/p>\n Watching the Kingdom three-quarter-pace their way through the province year in, year out, would take its toll on even the staunchest of Rebel hearts.<\/p>\n \u200a”We’ve been trying to get up along the ranks there the last couple years, and it hasn’t been easy. We take a step forward and a step back,” Cleary reflected.<\/p>\n “We knew it was a big ask coming up here today, but we were determined, whatever happened, to put on a good performance. We said ‘look, put on a good performance, and we’ll see where it goes from there’.<\/p>\n “And then we found ourselves in the game with 10 minutes to go, and, in fairness, we went for it. We deserve to win because I think we were brave. We didn’t defend the lead. We kept going, and just about got over the line in the end.”<\/p>\n \n McGuinness, for his part, was left to contend with Donegal’s third home loss in their last four championship games following their Ulster defeat to Down<\/a> and a similar reversal at the hands of Tyrone in 2025<\/a>. In between, the Donegal men held serve at home in their preliminary quarter-final with Louth<\/a> last season.<\/p>\n “Very, very, very disappointing, to be honest. It’s our third championship game at home that we’ve lost – and second this year,” McGuinness told RT\u00c9 Sport after the game.<\/p>\n “We wanted to put on a show today for the Donegal support, but that didn’t happen. We have to reflect on that heavily for over the next couple of days.<\/p>\n “But at the same time, we don’t have time really to be feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ve got to get back on the horse because we’ve only got seven or eight days to the next game.”<\/p>\n Like his opposite number, McGuinness recognises the beauty of a stiff breeze in football’s two-point era.<\/p>\n “The wind was very, very tricky. But we were in a strong position in the second half and we just needed to push on, but our own normal energy levels weren’t there – that’s what would disappoint us most,” the 2012 All-Ireland-winning manager stated.<\/p>\n “And when they’re not there, you’re always in that sort of Russian roulette. Cork, in fairness to them, came and they had their gameplan and they played well.<\/p>\n “They sensed it coming down the stretch, and they made the most of it, you know. We needed to see it out, and we didn’t.<\/p>\n Donegal live to fight another day. But their situation now couldn’t be simpler. We have finally reached the ‘win or go home’ part of the championship season. They face a preliminary quarter-final against one from Monaghan, Meath and the winner of Cavan v Dublin.<\/p>\n “\u200aWe’re in the exact same boat as last year, to be honest… other than the fact we played probably 50% less games, you know,” McGuinness said. “So, from that point of view, we’ll not get too stressed even though we went a very long route last year in Ulster and then played three games in a group, and then a preliminary quarter-final.<\/p>\n “So we’ll just focus on the preliminary quarter-final now. Hopefully we get a situation where we can rectify things over the next couple of days.<\/p>\n “Championship football, there’s no tomorrow most of the time, and we’re certainly into that territory now with knockout football. What we delivered today wasn’t enough and it wasn’t good enough.<\/p>\n “We’re very disappointed for the Donegal people, that they didn’t get that opportunity to support the team in the way that they did in Killarney. But, every game is on its own merits, and we have to take our hat off to Cork on this one.”<\/p>\n Watch an All-Ireland Football Championship double-header, Louth v Armagh (1pm) and Tyrone v Mayo (3.30pm) on Sunday from 12.30pm on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player. Follow our live blog on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and RT\u00c9 News app and listen to commentary on Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They had a feeling, the Corkmen. As they boarded the short flight up to Derry before bussing it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-498540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498540","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=498540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}