Allianz NFL Division One: Derry 3-14 Cork 2-18
By Chris McCann
Derry senior football manager Brian McIver says his side will have to learn the lessons from the calamitous start that cost them in Cork today.
Despite a valiant fight-back the Oak Leafers eventually paid the price for a ponderous opening spell which saw Cork streak into a 2-8 to 0-3 lead by the 24 minute mark.
John O'Rourke got the Rebels'opening major score opened when he flicked a Paul Kerrigan ball beyond Thomas Mallon in the 13th minute and Kerrigan was again the provider as Tomás Clancy grabbed Cork's second goal. Enda Lynn goaled in the 35th minute and Emmett McGuckin found the net in first half injury time to see Derry close the gap to 2-9 to 2-4 at the break but even with Lynn grabbing Derry's third goal midway through the second half, McIver's men had left themselves just too much to do.
Although encouraged by the character his side had shown, McIver was ultimately disappointed that the opening quarter frailties saw Derry leave Pair Ui Rinn empty handed.
"It was a great comeback in the second half but to be honest we had left ourselves a mountain to climb. In the first 20 minutes we were all at sea, we were eleven points down a t one stage. This is a very young side coming down here and there was maybe a wee bit of trepidation. Cork are on fire and every time we gave the ball away they punished us. Before half-time we felt that we had turned the tide and if we could get a bit of pressure on the game was still there for us and so it was. Fergal's (Doherty's) shot at the end just drifted wide and I think a point is the least we deserved from the game.
"We'll have to seriously look at that first 20 minutes you can't do that against good teams. But once we did settle down I think for the last 45 minutes we played the better football. The likes of Ciaran McFaul and Enda Lynn, they are all learning. Conor McAtamney came in today and those are big plusses. But after a long journey like this you'd like to get something out of it," he said.
McIver did feel that Derry had come out on the wrong end of a couple of key refereeing decisions by referee Maurice Deegan but admitted that his team were largely the authors of their own misfortune.
"I thought we should have had a penalty at crucial stage there and I thought that Colm O'Neill's free at the end was a very soft free. But we can look at nobody but ourselves. Whenever you hand a team 11 points of lead it needs a big comeback."
The Derry manager says that his side will have to absorb the lessons learned from today's sluggish start ahead of the visit of All-Ireland Champions Dublin to Celtic Park next Sunday.
"We can't afford to be standing off Dublin the way we did there against Cork today we'd need to be starting from the first second the way we played in the last 45 minutes."
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