Casey O'Brien says the Wicklow hurlers never got off the bus in Celtic Park.

The Garden County were subjected to a humiliating 2-19 to 0-10 defeat in the league opener in Derry on Sunday and the losing manager admits it was a below-par effort from his charges:

"I don't think we got off the bus," he told The Wicklow People. "I had no inkling that anything like this would happen.

"We are down a good few lads. Only six of the team last Sunday started in the Christy Ring Cup final in Croke Park. So that's nine lads gone. And they are not just fringe players - they are the spine of the team.

"You have Graham Keogh out injured, Wayne O'Gorman out injured, Enan Glynn unavailable, Eamonn Kearns out injured.

"Up until the match last Sunday, Ronan Keddy was injured and he hadn't trained for three weeks.

"But listen, there's no excuses for how we went out and hurled on Sunday, no matter who was missing. We were just bad."