Mullaney remains positives following Under 23 final defeat

Tipperary Under 23 manager Bill Mullaney was disappointed but proud of his players, following their extra time loss at the hand of Cork in the first Munster final in the new competition.

“We knew it was going to be tough coming up against Cork today,” began the Newport/Ballinahinch clubman.

“The performance in the second half, I thought was unreal. I felt we didn’t get out of the blocks in the first half, but in the second half, we performed exceptionally well.

“We just seemed to run out of steam, out of strength and out of power a small bit as extra time went on, and Cork pulled away.

“I don’t think the score reflected how close we were to them, and the game we actually gave them.

“I was delighted with the performance and really proud of them especially in the second half and thought our players were top class.

“I also felt we were a bit unlucky in normal time too, we were on for scores I thought on a few occasions, but just couldn’t get the shot away, and I felt one or two decisions went against us, but look that’s the way it goes at the end of the day, and if we had taking one or two chances at the end of normal time we could have come away with a victory.”

Mullaney felt Cork just had a deeper pool of players, and that was key to their victory.

“We were probably a small bit underpowered to what Cork were out on the pitch,” Mullaney added.

“But we are getting there, we are a very young panel, with a lot of our players just the first year out of minor, but one thing for certain, Tipp have a great pool coming through, so we will just have to push on now again, and get ready for the All-Ireland championship, which is our next challenge, in three weeks’ time,” adding they will have to assess the fitness of Celine Guinan and Aoife Dwyer who left the game injured.