John Cleary was delighted with Cork’s response to their 20-point drubbing by Derry against Kildare on Saturday night.

The Rebels put their Celtic Park mauling a fortnight ago behind them with a nine-point victory over the Lilywhites at Páirc Uí Rinn to leave themselves within touching distance of promotion from Division 2 of the Allianz Football League ahead of next weekend’s final round trip to Tyrone.

“We were hurt after that Derry game. There might have been reasons for it, but nobody likes to get a beating like that,” Cleary told reporters.

“We had the break and our trip away. The first thing we wanted to do was atone for the Derry game. That one result was an outlier really. The lads were determined, particularly in front of the home supporters, to put on a performance.

“We knew in Derry that it wasn’t acceptable, but all you can do is learn from it. And I think we took the learnings from it and we parked it pretty quickly after that day and we were totally focused on Kildare.

“If you had given me a nine-point victory this morning I would have bitten the hand off for it. So we’ll take that and move on.

“We never looked like losing the game. It never came down to that. We didn’t panic. Nine points is a fair reflection, particularly the way we played in the first half.”

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