It's all about the response now
Eleanor Treacy scores one her three points against Kerry on Saturday but that was all Carlow had to show for their efforts Photo: Mark O'Sullivan
Carlow manager Mikey Mangan was at a loss to explain why his team were so far from their usual selves against Kerry in Tralee last Saturday afternoon.
After a successful Leinster campaign, there were high hopes that Carlow could make a real impact in the All-Ireland series but the team were miles from the standards that they would usually set for themselves.
“Kerry were by far the better team on the day,” agreed Mangan.
“We never got to the pitch of the game, our touch was off, our handling was off. Just for whatever reason, I don’t know but it was a flat, flat performance. It’s time to reflect from our end, the player’s end, everybody has to reflect on that because that’s just not good enough and if we don’t improve 20 fold we are staring relegation in the face. It’s a long trip home, we’ll have lots of time to reflect on it and then get back on the training field and get it sorted in time for our next game in two weeks’ time,” he added.
Although Kerry would have been favourites for the game, Carlow have pushed them hard in recent years and there was only a point between the teams when they met in the league earlier this year.
“We lost by a point to them in the league. We were eight points up and Kerry didn’t go ahead until the last puck of the game. We came down here full of confidence, full of belief…but we were just bet all over the field. It’s not in their character. The one thing I just said to them is that you are guaranteed to get great honesty, effort, integrity out of that bunch but that just wasn’t there today for whatever reason. It’s completely out of character but hopefully we can get back into character for the next two games, we have to because it will be a long couple of weeks if we don’t,” said Mangan.
Injuries and the upcoming Leaving Cert meant that Carlow only had three substitutes but Mangan wasn’t using that as an excuse.
“We were down a few players. We picked up a couple of injuries in the Leinster final, we’re down three players due to the start of the Leaving Cert. We have a small panel to start with, just the 24 players, but it’s still 15 on 15 on the pitch. Just because Kerry have a bit of a bigger panel that’s no excuse for what we put in there today. There’s no excuse today, we were just beaten by a better team on the day, a slicker, sharper opposition,” said Mangan.
Carlow have two group games left, starting with Kildare on the weekend after next, and Mangan said it’s about bouncing back in the right manner.
It’s all about the response to this now. We just have to buckle up and make sure we win the next game, whether it’s by one point or whatever it takes, we just have to dig in and find a result, and find a performance after that. In fairness, I know these girls, they are very hurt by this, it’s completely out of character for them. They are a great bunch and it’s just about sorting a couple of things on the training pitch and getting the response we need. At the end of the day, this is Championship, maybe a little bit of the speed and pitch of the game caught them out but we’ll sort that out, work through it and hopefully have a better result next day out.
