Conor Counihan admits Cork might have been better off losing last year's league final.

The Rebels were completely outplayed by Dublin for long periods of the Division One decider before overturning an eight-point deficit to get out of jail. Upon reflection, the Cork boss tells the Irish Examiner that his team might have learned more had they lost that game:

"You would have said, 'Jesus, how did we get ourselves into that position?' You kind of say, 'Ah, sure look we got away with it and we can move on from it'.

"There's nothing that hurts more than losing and when you do lose you do tend to analyse it that bit better.

"That was a game we shouldn't have won and I'd be the first to put my hand up on that. You've to evaluate victories as you would defeats and sometimes we over-analyse defeats and we don't analyse the quality of the victory.

"On that particular day, Dublin had several opportunities to put that game away and didn't. They certainly evaluated that and to be fair they became all the stronger for it." Tweet

Most Read Stories