Cork get the points, but Kilkenny take plenty of positives from defeat

Cork may have handed Kilkenny their first loss of the camogie league season, but the Cats have gained plenty from the defeat.

Having integrated several of the players that were part of last year’s successful minor championship team into their squad, selector Eoin Murphy said that the experience would stand to those teenagers and the rest of the team.

“The power that Cork brought was really something,” he said after Saturday’s Division 1A 1-15 to 0-9 loss in Freshford. “They forced that win in the last 20 minutes with their power and their running game. They were under pressure after two defeats and they came with a cause. We thought we matched them, but that last 20 minutes gave us a lot to talk about.

“We got beat in a league match in the first week of March,” he continued. “We didn’t get too high after beating Galway or Tipperary and we won’t over-react to this either.

“We would have loved to have won today but the beauty of league hurling is there’s another game next week,” he added. “For a lot of our girls, this will bring them on a tonne.”

There were two significant themes in round three of the Centra National Camogie League, at least when it came to the leading counties in Division 1A.

All three games at Ballymena, Freshford and The Ragg featured teams trying to handle strong March winds, and then there was the return of the established powers.

Kilkenny's Emma Shortall and Cork's Meadbh Murphy PICTURE: BILLY CULLETON

Neither defending champions Cork nor Galway, who defeated them in last year’s All-Ireland final, had won a game in the first two rounds of the campaign and the grim spectre of relegation was starting to open up for them.

Galway’s 1-13 to 0-12 win over Tipperary and a devastating finish from Cork in their 1-15 to 0-9 victory against Kilkenny put the two counties right back into the pack, still with very real aspirations of returning to the league decider.

Waterford remain on the driving seat on the back of their 1-16 to 0-9 win over Antrim, meaning that they are the only side with a perfect nine points from three games, and it was their management of the breeze that saw them effectively take control of the tie with 20 minutes played.

At Freshford, Cork struggled with the aid of the breeze and looked to be in trouble when they were reeled in by Kilkenny 10 minutes into the second half, with the Cats now having the wind at their backs.

But unlike the first couple of weeks when Ger Manley went with experimental sides, this was a Cork team with a lot more familiar faces, including a host of All-Stars and All-Ireland winners. Once one of that cohort, Orlaith Cahalane, rattled the net in the 50th minute, the Rebels didn’t look back.