NOT surprisingly, there was a mixed reaction in the Cork camp following the win over Galway. Selector Terry O'Neill insisted it was a highly satisfying victory, bearing in mind the number of players who are unavailable at the moment.

"The bulk of them would be defenders," he pointed out, in a thinly-disguised reference to the fact that the backs were under a fair amount of pressure in the second half.

"The big fear was that we might concede a goal near the end, and I suppose when you have a class forward like Michael Meehan up against you, it means that anything is possible. But we put 1-19 on the board ourselves which, in the first week in March, has to be considered a good score in any man's language."

Commenting on the deterioration in Cork's dominance after half time, O'Neill said there was a 'handy' breeze there, and he also suggested the referee's performance was a factor. "I don't know what the free-count was, but, in my humble opinion, it was about 2 to 1 in Galway's favour, and I thought our players nearly had to be killed to get a free.

"As well as that, Galway got a lucky break for the goal which made for an exciting last few minutes, but the bottom line is that this was our third win from three games, and we would have to be happy with ourselves, because results are what it's all about at the end of the day. We have Tyrone next, and we might have a few more players back for that.

"But we won't be rushing a fella back if he's not ready, because a week is very little time to shake off an injury, especially for a player who has reached 30. The next thing is he could be out for a month, but our intention is to give every new fella a fair chance in any case, and we will continue to try out a few different things for the games ahead.

"The way we look at it is that if a fella comes in and plays well, he is making it harder for the guy that's out to win his place back, and that's what you need in order to make progress. Everybody knows that Tyrone will be real test, but you have to try and think of the positives going up there, and we will be hoping to win the match, it's as simple as that, said O'Neill.

Coach Conor Counihan was a bit more downbeat, suggesting that Galway possibly came out of the game with more than Cork did. "There were stages of the match when we looked to have things under control, but Galway came back at us time and time again, and you would have to give them fierce credit.

"Joe (Kernan) has certainly instilled his charges with a fair bit of bottle, and they played some very attractive football tonight. It was an entertaining match, but we were fortunate to get out of it with a win, and I was disappointed that we didn't we produce a good level of performance over a sustained period. But we are still in the month of March, and I wouldn't be getting too excited about it."

Counihan said the most encouraging thing so far is that the selectors are getting a chance to look at a few new players "A lot of these guys have done well, but we are taking it one game at a time, and the next game against Tyrone is obviously a big challenge. We are looking forward to that, it's great to be mixing with the best, but we know after underperforming tonight, we are going to have to improve significantly to get a result up there.

"We are scoring well, but that isn't going to benefit us if we can't shut things down at the other side. It takes a fifteen-man effort to do that, and it was disappointing that Galway players were allowed to solo up the field unchallenged which put our backs under a lot of pressure in the second half tonight.

" There is still a lot of work to be done," concluded the Cork boss.

- Noel Horgan