Eoin Cadogan: No more pretending when Cork and Limerick lay down a gauntlet for 2022
No surrender: Cork laid down the law to Limerick in the league earlier this year but it came at a cost. Picture: INPHO/Bryan Keane
IT might be a hurling weekend, but we can always learn from others.
In 2009, the Cork footballers were preparing to take on the hard-hitting men of Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final. During the 2000s Tyrone had built a reputation of playing on the edge and overstepping it at times in the form of Ryan Mcmenamin, Joe McMahon (who I later played International Rules with and is a gentleman) and Kevin Hughes.
They were a no-nonsense team who weren’t shy of showing it. Prior to the semi, my first real introduction to sports psychology was via Kevin Clancy. He was always calm, clear and precise in how he communicated. Prior to training, Kevin would do his best work, having a quiet word with a player and always listening intuitively. One night, we were summoned upstairs in Pairc ui Rinn where Kevin asked for 10 of the leaders to come up for a quiet word with him. While the rest of us chatted and laughed Kevin was setting a trap for a reaction. He sent the leaders back down amongst the group and put us in threes with one leader in each group.
After a minute of chatting about game plans etc, Kevin shouted “NOW” and with that, I got a slap across the face not dissimilar to Will Smith’s antics at the Oscars from our towering midfielder Alan O'Connor, who has hands like shovels.
Instinctively I reacted and straight-up caught him by the scruff of the training jersey. Kevin had got what he wanted. A reaction. An emotional response without any thought of consequences for the rest of the group. We needed to learn to control it, expect it and channel it into tackles, aggressively controlled tackles when we faced Tyrone. Ironically Alan O’Connor got two yellows in that game early on, unfairly if you look back on it, but we went on to win the game.
Both Cork and Limerick come into this Sunday’s Munster SHC opener loaded with emotion but with much higher stakes than any previous league encounter.
The last two weeks in the Cork camp will have been tetchy each night the players took to the field. Fringe players trying to stake a claim for Championship and the starting 15 from the league final feeling the heat from a sub-par performance. That’s healthy and that’s what drives competition and standards.
Although the league final was disappointing in a strange way Cork are heading into this first championship game in a great position. When you win you’re at ease, you become comfortable. Everyone is clapping you on the back, saying how good you are and talking up your ability to be All-Ireland contenders. The conversations are like an anaesthetic and your guard slips. Instead, everyone has been kicking you the last two weeks. Questioning you. Calling out your tactics. Questioning your hurling ability and, worse again, your character. That has to drive a response, not for folk like me or you, but for the group and each other.
While Cork’s flaws and failings from a league final loss to Waterford are fresh on our minds, my friends in green have been waiting patiently in the long grass all these weeks, licking their lips at the thought of Pairc Ui Chaoimh. One would imagine that the Limerick we saw in the league will be unrecognisable to the one will we see Sunday. The last championship game between Cork and Limerick in the Páirc in 2018 on a Saturday night was electric and finished up a draw with Gillane getting his marching orders early.
This time the camera light is flashing red and watching closely for any false stroke after an ill-disciplined showing in the league from John Kiely’s army. You can be sure the highly rated sports psychologist Caroline Currid will have as much contact time with the Limerick players as Gary Keegan will have had with Cork. The mind, once focused and steeled, can be the difference in maximising your potential. Stay in the moment. Next ball, next play.
Sean O’Donnell, the statistician and video analyst with Limerick, will have gone through every play, every puck out and any sign of weakness that they can attack. You can be sure goals are on their mind. Having worked with Sean previously, the messages will be clear and precise. The questions will be open towards the group with invariably about the players finding solutions themselves.
In the Cork camp, Tomas Manning and David Nolan will have broken down opposition stats, scores and player profiling. This was always my thing — I like to know my opponents. What was their preferred side, angles of runs, colour helmet, even boots. I made myself familiar and comfortable with what was coming through forensic detail. It gave me confidence knowing how I could shut them down. Note to forwards: don’t wear bright coloured boots — you are easier to find in the chaos for us defenders.
Paul Kinnerk will know that Cork’s ability to fight for dirty ball in the middle third has improved in 2022 but will have worked on moving the ball out of those tight positions to support runners on the wings, similar to Waterford.
As spectators, sometimes we watch the man in possession. But the next pass is the one to look out for as it invariably unlocks the defence. Eyes on the support runners. They’re the guys that will hurt you.
Will we see a curveball and see Kyle Hayes at 11 to negate Mark Coleman’s threat (if he remains at 6) and keep him more honest with Cian Lynch at 13 in a floating roll? I think we might with a Limerick forward unit that hasn’t hit the cohesive flow of 2021 just yet — especially with big question marks over Seamus Flanagan’s availability due to injury.
Limerick’s ability to offload the ball under pressure (although at times a throw) has been something that always impressed me. Doing the right thing with the ball under pressure is always a sign of a top-class player and expect Hegarty, Lynch, Hayes and Hannon to be moving that ball out of those collision areas ASAP. Cork’s challenge will be to create those double and triple-up tackles knowing that if the ball gets passed out of the chaos, the options will be there to run hard at the Cork defence.
In their last league encounter, we saw Cork laying down the law with a more aggressive approach, but it came with a cost. Shane Kingston saw red with a frustrated looking hit on Sean Finn (look back after Kingston scored the goal — there’s always a reason) and on the other side Seamus Flanagan’s attempt to stop Niall O Leary in his tracks was another emotionally-charged hit which led to a red. Armagh’s Kieran McGeeney said to me once: “The only things forwards know how to tackle is a fish supper”.
Let’s bring it back to Páirc uí Chaoimh. Controlled aggression. No emotion. Let both teams come super-charged to lay down the gauntlet for 2022, showing that … They’re not like the others.. there will be no pretending….
And most certainly no surrender.
