‘I was brought up playing a different way’ says Cork boss John Cleary after arm-wrestle with Louth

It may well be a case of dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t for Cork interim manager John Cleary last Saturday as the Castlehaven man’s charges went into a home tie with Louth for a place in Round 2 of the All-Ireland qualifiers. Expected to win, but made work hard for the spoils.

leary, who has only had his hands on the wheel for a number of months has now guided the team into the round of last 12 in Ireland, something that a favourable draw and some hard work has conjured.

Playing a defensive side like Louth was always going to be a challenge, but Cleary was confident the way the team are performing that in the end Cork would have the upper hand.

“In the end, it was relief because Louth made it very hard for us in the first half and maybe we didn’t cope as well as we should have,” said Cleary.

“We ended up going into corners as they defended very, very deep and while we expected Louth to be defensive, we didn’t think it would be from inside their own 45.

“We said at half-time that we would have to be patient and as long we kept being a point or two ahead it meant we didn’t have to go chasing the game.”

Playing on the back foot isn’t something that comes naturally to the man now entrusted with bringing the good times back to Cork football so Cleary needed his players to be relaxed and dig-in for the long haul as Louth continued to sit back.

“I was brought up playing a different way. I’d prefer to be going gung-ho and the best team, with some tactics thrown in, coming out on top.”

As the home side, and in control on the board Cleary was clear that the onus wasn’t on his side to make a break for it when things were going their way on the pitch.

“It was up to Louth at some stage to come out and we knew they wouldn’t be able to keep that going all the time.

“They tired and when we got in for our first goal, we probably thought ‘this is it’ and, definitely with our second, we reckoned we’d win it handily enough, however, we left them back into the game and they pushed up on us which they might have some regrets because they might have done so earlier. Who knows where it would have taken them and no doubt it would have been a much better spectacle for everyone.”

On the other side of the situation there was no doubting that Mickey Harte’s men came into this one as underdogs so the mass defensive set that faced the Rebels all game can’t have come as a surprise, but what may have surprised many is how good the Wee County men were at that style and how prepared they were to stick to their negative plan for well over 70 minutes.

Sitting in the post-match press conference it was obvious that Harte wasn’t going to distance himself from his side’s tactics, instead the former Tyrone manager went down the road of justifying them saying, “There are different strokes for different folks.

“You gotta play to the conditions, you gotta play to the players at your disposal. We don’t have all our players at our disposal. Six or seven of our regulars from last year have not been available to us across the whole season. You have to cut the cloth to suit your means.

“I ask the question: would you rather go to a game that is over at half-time or go to one where there is a lot of intrigue about how you might be able to break down a defence or how you get scores against a lot of numbers behind the ball.

“I don’t think watching a game that is 2-12 to 0-4 at half-time, that doesn’t entertain me at all, and I am sure it doesn’t entertain anybody. It gives you the longest second half you could ever dream of.”

Back to Cleary, and the result, ahead of all else, takes centre stage as his side will now be planning for a date with Limerick next weekend in Páirc Uí Chaoimh

“The main thing, though, is that we got over the line and we’re relieved with that. We’re not used to playing against such ultra-defensive teams.

“In the league against Derry it wasn’t as defensive as that and we just found it hard to break down. Here in Munster, you’re playing teams that might be a bit defensive, but not to the same extent as this. Our two goals came from our probing and just being patient.

“On another day, we could so easily have been caught if Louth had scored a goal with 10 minutes to go they would definitely have shut up shop completely then and we may not have been able to get the scores.”