Donal O'Grady believes Cork got it badly wrong on the sideline during their crushing Allianz Hurling League final defeat to Kilkenny last Sunday.

However, the former Cork and Limerick manager is confident that fellow St. Finbarr's clubman Jimmy Barry-Murphy and the rest of his management team will learn from the experience.

"I was one of the people who thought Cork would do well," O'Grady is quoted as saying in the Irish Examiner.

"But tactically Cork got it wrong. I wouldn't blame anyone for that, the new management team are just there and the big job will be to restore confidence within the panel itself. They've been doing that well up to last Sunday and while it was a blow I believe they'll rebound.

"I think the way you play Kilkenny though is to hold on as long as you can, and everyone saw after 10 minutes it was game over at 2-6 to 0-1. There was too much space afforded to Eoin Larkin, Cork should have crowded at the back more. They'd have suffered for it a little up front, but my belief is the only way you can hope to beat Kilkenny is to be in the game in the last quarter and hope for the best.

"But if Kilkenny get a couple of goals up, that's it, they have a great system and shut up shop. It'll be a good learning process for Cork though. " Tweet

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