Mortell confident new look Cork can perform well
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Thursday February 05 2009
SELECTOR John Mortell is confident that the new-look Cork hurling team side will give a good account of themselves in next Sunday's league clash with Dublin at Pairc Ui Chaoimh. And the Ballyhea clubman believes that they would be quite capable of collecting the brace of points at stake if they perform to their full potential.
"The players have been giving it their all in training, and we played a few challenge matches recently which were very useful in terms of building up team spirit. I thought they did very well against Waterford, even allowing for the fact that Waterford were missing some of their star names.
"Having said that, they had a lot of seasoned campaigners on duty, and the other fellas were obviously fighting for a place in the panel, so it was a good test, and we were very happy with the way our lads shaped up. The game against All-Ireland club champions Portumna last Sunday didn't go so well from our point of view," admitted Mortell
"But a lot of the lads are involved with the Colleges and some of them were playing their fourth game in eight days, so they were bound to be a bit sluggish. It's obviously a concern to be going in against Dublin with fifteen players making their league debut, but I see no reason why we can't win if the lads play to their potential.
"The way we are viewing is that it's fifteen against fifteen on Sunday, and, to be honest, I think we are after unearthing some great players, who will have no difficulty adapting to inter-county hurling. It's a very young team, but we have about seven or eight players who were involved in last year's county final between Sars and Bride Rovers, and that has to count for something.
"We are facing into Sunday's game in a positive frame of mind, our intention is to come out of it with a win, and I'm very hopeful the players will rise to the challenge," concluded the Cork mentor.
