Cork exited the championship on Saturday evening without even the barest of whimpers as they took a thrashing at the hands of Tyrone in the final round of the qualifiers.
Speaking on the Sunday Game, Tomás Ó Sé - who until his recent retirement from the club game played for Nemo Rangers - said that he was embarrassed for Cork people in attendance at O'Moore Park in Portlaoise. Ciarán Whelan added that Cork looked like a side who did not want to be in the Super 8.
"If you're playing against better players, grand. If you're playing against a team with better tactics, grand. If you've bad luck, if a referee's going against you... but the one thing you can control is work rate and I just thought it was shocking," said Ó Sé.
"The body language from them, the desire, the hunger - where does that come from? It comes from the player himself.
"There are examples where there wasn't a paw landed on one Tyrone player.
"A lot of people say, 'Oh, what's going on?' I was embarrassed for some of the Cork people there."
Ó Sé also gave him thoughts on the wider problems behind Cork's football woes.
Cork are not a football county in my eyes.
They've had the Barrs, Nemo - great club teams - but at county level they haven't had the same success that other superpowers have had.
Kerry beat them by 17 points, if Tipperary beat the Cork hurlers by 17 points and then they went out the next day and got another thumping, there would be absolute war.
There's a culture down there that it's almost half acceptable for the footballers. They lack belief, they lack an arrogance. I see Stephen Cronin playing for Nemo, he's not the same player when he plays for Cork.
There's a stronghold over in east Cork, it's hurling country. West Cork was always football country. Over in east Cork, they are dominating football at underage level. Yet, when they come to a certain age, they are told, 'Hurling is your sport'.
Somebody has to stand up. There's always a slight thrown at the Cork county board that they're a hurling county board. Set up another county board - there's very good footballing people in Cork.
I don't know if there's a desire to drive the football as hard as there is to drive the hurling.
