Burke pleased with mentality shown in comeback win
The Carlow ladies team line up before last weekend's game against Offaly at the Faithful Fields Photo: Johnny Gorry
Ed Burke was a happy man after seeing his side keep their composure after falling behind in the first half and then eventually pulling away to a relatively comfortable win.
Carlow played into the wind and driving rain in the opening half but Burke still wasn’t happy with the performance.
“I think anybody would say that we were poor in the first half. I said to them inside that we did 80% of what we didn’t want to do in the first half. We came out in the second half there, Offaly kept the head, but we kept battling. I’m here four of the last five years and if we were four points down five years ago we’d have lost by 24 points, never mind come back and bring a fairly convincing second half performance to be able to win the game,” he said.
The win demonstrated the steely resolve within this Carlow team.
“We tried a few different things there today, long balls in, long kick outs because we have to be able to operate on a different level when it comes to it. Things came right for us and that was down to the perseverance, we stuck at it and then at the end, we kept the ball probably for six of the last seven minutes. We’re a tough team to play against and that was one thing we said to them, we might not win every game but make sure that no team wants to play Carlow and I don’t think at the minute that any team wants to play Carlow,” said Burke.
The Carlow manager could be heard bellowing from the sideline in the closing minutes telling his players to keep the ball, take the sting out of the game and manage the final moments. That kind of game management will be key going forward as the games get more important.
“We’re realists,” said Burke.
“We’re not the highest scoring team in the world but we get opportunities and create chances. There are times in the game when we have to slow it down and if we are three points up, try to make that feel like a ten point lead. We still gave it away a couple of times but they were limited to two or three opportunities in the last few minutes and as long as we didn’t concede a goal we were fairly safe,” he said.
A fifth successive win next week at home to Derry would see Carlow clinch their semi-final spot with still two rounds of the league to be played and Burke wants his team to keep their foot on the pedal. Wins like this one over Offaly can help ahead of potential repeat clashes further down the line.
“Offaly only lost to Leitrim by three points and you see them there in the first half, they are a super, super team with really good movement but we are four wins from four. We want to get to the semi-finals, to get to the final and then win the thing. We know we’ll probably have to play Offaly again whether that be in a semi-final or final so we are under no illusions of what we’ll have to do,” he said.
