Brian Cuthbert’s Cork have serious issues to tackle

Cork manager Brian Cuthbert promised a ‘root and branch examination’ of his side after their shock league final capitulation on Sunday but the question is where does Cuthbert start?

Statistical analysis of the performance against Dublin will offer few crumbs of comfort for Cork’s management. In every department of play, Cork were light years behind Dublin.

For example, Cork’s tackle count was just 52, compared to Dublin’s 76.

To shed harsher light on that imbalance, Cork only managed 42% of the overall possession yet Dublin managed to complete 24 more tackles. It’s interesting to contrast Cork’s display with Down’s in the Division 2 final. Down had to play with 14 men for 40 minutes of the game and also had just 43% of possession, but they worked their socks off and completed an impressive 77 tackles. They also managed to turnover Roscommon possession 22 times.

These are the type of numbers that will give Jim McCorry something to work on in the coming weeks.

The same cannot be said for Brian Cuthbert, who will be bitterly disappointed with the way his side responded to adversity.

The problem for the Cork management is that this is the third time the team has failed to deliver on the big day in 12 months, following last year’s league final defeat by Dublin and the Munster final defeat by Kerry.

Another startling stat from Cork’s performance is that they only managed 12 shots from play in the entire game. Even worse, they converted only three of those chances. Worse again, the starting half forward line managed only one shot from play in the game (a wide from Kevin O’Driscoll). Cork’s most dangerous forward Colm O’Neill handled the ball just six times.

Credit for Cork’s poor display must, of course, go to Dublin whose game-plan worked like clockwork on the day.

Dublin targeted Cork’s strong running from deep and Cork had no plan B. Time and again, Dublin forced runners like Tomás Clancy, Jamie O’Sullivan, Paul Kerrigan and Mark Collins to check their strides and turn backwards.

Dublin’s defensive wall across the middle third was a tactical masterstroke by Jim Gavin. Brian Cuthbert does have options, with the returning Ian Maguire, Alan O’Connor, Patrick Kelly, Donncha O’Connor and Brian O’Driscoll. Cork will also have to make a decision on what style of play they will implement for the summer. If the running game does not work, where are the footballers in the middle third of the field to kick long-range points or to set up their dangerous inside forwards?

Further disappointment, from a Cork perspective, was their complete failure to negate Stephen Cluxton’s kick outs. The Dublin captain only failed to find his man once, with three scores accruing directly from the keeper’s kick-outs. The return of O’Connor and Maguire will again improve Cork in this area. While Jim Gavin will be the happier of the two managers, Dublin are now pretty much set up for a fall in the summer, with everyone expecting a third All-Ireland victory in five years.

The only way is up for Cork and memories of a league final loss would be quickly erased by a Munster final win in Killarney on the first weekend in July.