Kildare players 'will be criticised but one thing they did show was heart' says Flanagan after fourth defeat in a row

After a difficult 70+ minutes, Kildare manager, Brian Flanagan admitted that it was a very disappointing display, and result for his side in Allianz Football League Division 2.

“Very disappointing, particularly in the first half, we just gave ourselves way too much of a hill to climb, Cork were very efficient kicking with the wind, a lot of two-pointers, we stood off them and allowed that to happen, that is the disappointing aspect but the upshot is that we showed an awful lot of spirit in the second half, coming away after winning the second half, leaving four goals behind us, a penalty miss but the lads showed real intent, real want to chase a game down that looked away from them and if one or two of those goals went in maybe a different finish, but proud of them in that regard, nobody gave up, nobody went missing.”

The manager added that “sitting in the dressing room at half-time, sixteen points down, that can go one of two ways and in fairness we are a young group, down our captain and leader, Kevin Feely, yes, we did not win the game and there will be a lot of our game that will be criticised but one thing they did show was heart and lots of spirit and I am proud of them for that.”

READ FULL REPORT: Kildare pay the penalty for opening half collapse against Cork

Asked about playing against the wind in the opening half the manager said that “every decision like that in terms of when you go with the wind or not is determined generally how your season is going, the last couple of results which did not go well for us and we didn't feel we could come here and come out of the blocks that quick so going against the wind did not bother us too much, but we just didn't defend those two-pointers, Cork are very athletic, hard-running team, the goal they got was disappointing from our point of view but they didn't open us up for five, six goal chances beyond that so I thing we dealt with that aspect defensively what we didn't deal with was that second phase when the ball was moved around, thrown back around the arc, we played too deep and it cost us.”

On the half-time changes the manager said they brought in two attacking players to do that and “they all contributed, look at what Ben (McCormack) Jack (Robinson) and Alex (Beirne) scored, go for broke, we just had to go for it.”

The manger said that on the black card, they were told by the fourth official that a goalkeeper is allowed to be changed, part of the new rules.