Bergin ‘hurting’ after disappointing Kilkenny minor display

Kilkenny minor hurling boss Niall Bergin cut a dejected figure after his side lost out to Dublin in last week’s round-robin clash.

The O’Loughlin Gaels man couldn’t hide his despair afterwards as he summed up his feelings on the five point defeat.

“It was very disappointing and there’s no two ways about it,” he said.

“We didn’t play well and we need to find out why we didn’t very quickly as otherwise we’ll be staring down an exit from the championship to be honest with you.”

It was Kilkenny’s second defeat in as many weeks but unlike the loss away to Wexford, where they finished strongly, the Cats were flat for long periods and missed a number of scoreable chances.

“There’s two ways of looking at the opportunities that we missed,” he said. “One is that we are creating the chances but, two, we didn’t take them and we had 11 wides in the first half in total.

“At this level that’s just not good enough and you are going to get punished. To flip it on its head, Dublin missed very little in the second half and it’s hurting big time.

“The guys in the dressing room are a great bunch of lads and whatever the reason for the performance, we have to go and identify it as they’ve only really shown their ability once this year and that’s about it.”

Niall Bergin’s team don’t have much time to feel sorry for themselves as they are back out again this weekend where they will hope to rediscover their form from a few weeks ago.

“The last two games have been disappointing but even when playing poorly we’ve only lost narrowly by three and five points respectively.

“In a way you think you aren’t too far away either but that’s not going to suffice once you get to the knockout stages,” he added.

“The harder the lads tried, the more it kind of unravelled but they are a good bunch and I’m sure they’ll stick together as we’ve no option but to bounce back.

“We’ll regroup and get together over the next few days and try analyse this and look forward as that’s all we can do and find ways to improve quickly.”