Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Cork’s key ploy? Force Kerry long
Liam O'Donovan of Cork in action against Sean O'Shea of Kerry during the Munster SFC final last year. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Kerry and Cork clashes have always been special occasions as well as massive games. Pre-qualifiers, it dictated the rhythm of the summer for the football folk in each county. Win and the summer road opened out in front of you. A tilt at the All-Ireland consumed a county.
Lose and it was back to the club and at least the county championship should, in theory, be finished a bit earlier in the year.
The crowds, the colour, the flags — in particular the colourful variety of Cork flags — always added that bit of romance to a significant and, at times, tempestuous local rivalry.
Down the years I listened to Kerry managers and selectors advising us players to focus on the match and the job in hand and to forget about everything else. Play the match, not the occasion, we were told. Forget about the night out and any ensuing craic afterwards. I echoed those sentiments myself as manager.
Tomorrow in Páirc Ui Chaoimh, this sense of an occasion is gone. It’s one less thing for managers to contend with. It is stripped back to the bare bones and to what it is all about as a player. A match, that must be won. It will have a primeval feel to it for the players. Kill or be killed.
It will be good.
Cork have made progress under Ronan McCarthy. He is experienced as a coach and in management, both on and off the field. They have built on last season where, post-relegation, they improved incrementally and were competitive in all their championship games.
Some of the emerging young players have the skills and appear to have the minerals to contend.
They were unbeaten in the league, got promoted and are clearly building. The Under 20 and Minor All-Ireland wins provide that vital ingredient of belief.
There appears to be a determination about them and a good spirit in the group, as evidenced by Ciarán Sheehan on the GAA podcast this week, both in what he said and what he didn’t say.
Cork seem to be on a journey, but the biggest challenge tomorrow is they are coming up against a group further down the road than they are.
Cian O’Neill
McCarthy’s mission to build a high-performance culture to compete and beat the likes of Kerry, Dublin and Mayo has meant that he has surrounded himself with good people, most notably Kevin Smith and Cian O’Neill.
Obviously, I know Cian very well and he is a big addition to any setup. Given that he is based in Cork and after a long number of years of clocking up big mileage to Kerry and Kildare it was a natural fit for both parties.
He is probably relishing being back in a coaching role again. This is his passion, is what he excels at and he doesn’t have to bother attending to some of the tedious duties of a manager.
He brings a lot to the table for Cork, in terms of his on-field coaching, his expertise in Strength and Conditioning and his All-Ireland winning experience. His knowledge of some of the Kerry players can help Cork but above all else he is an extreme competitor who hates losing.
When he was involved with us, a week out from championship games, we would have an A v B game. These games could be ferocious, and the players always took them very seriously. The A team wanted to hold their spots and everyone on the B team had a point to prove and wanted to move up the pecking order, be that to earn a starting jersey or to make the 26 the following weekend.
The teams would tog off in separate dressing rooms and the B team would wear the colours of the upcoming opposition which always added an edge to proceedings. Cian would take the B team for the day. Depending on the opposition we would often pick the B team to mimic how the upcoming team would play. If we were playing Cork, for example, we would pick half-backs that would bomb forward at every opportunity and Cian would tell the lads pre-match to do just that.
Generally, this would start out as planned but if the green and golds started to get on top at all, Cian would change tack. He would start barking instructions. Suddenly the players that were supposed to be mimicking the Cork half-backs would start bombing ball on top of the full-forward line.
I would throw Cian an eye as if to say Cork won’t be doing this the next day, but Cian was so caught up in trying to win the A v B game he wouldn’t even notice. We laughed about it afterwards and he would argue that we had to be ready for every eventuality.
Of course, he had a point, but it was driven by his competitiveness and he will bring this tomorrow. He will drive Cork and would love nothing more than to get one over Kerry. Obviously, he has a soft spot for us but that won’t be evident tomorrow.
McCarthy was very annoyed when Longford didn’t fulfil their recent league fixture. At the time I understood his annoyance but was surprised at how vociferous he was in articulating it.
Having watched the Louth match in the meantime, I understand. Cork need proper games, that no amount of A v B games will replace. They needed to try and get real match-time into Brian Hurley, Luke Connolly, Seán Powter and to a lesser extent Mark Collins who did see action against Louth.
Significantly, as a team they needed another match to iron out some kinks in their play. Last year in the lead into the Munster final they had been very competitive in a number of challenge matches and this bred confidence and embedded cohesion. Against Louth they looked very dangerous at times. I could see some of Cian’s coaching in the forward movement and particularly with the way players were flushing out their runs and creating opportunities for others. There was evidence also of plenty of players coming on the loop in support which led to goals. Many of the newer players played well and continue to develop. Killian O’Hanlon, Paul Walsh, Mattie Taylor and Cian Kiely in particular were all very impressive.
However, as a team Cork made plenty of unforced errors in possession resulting in turnovers.
Against a Division 3 team (now a Division 4 team), you will get away with that. Against the League champions you will pay a serious price, particularly with the pace Kerry have in transition.
Louth’s Sam Mulrooney is an excellent player and he caused Cork plenty of trouble at the back in that October 17 game. Louth hit the crossbar twice in the second half. Cork’s problem tomorrow is Kerry have at least eight Mulrooneys. They may hold a few of them but holding all of them is probably going to be beyond them.
Kerry are in a good place and unless they take Cork for granted, they will prevail. They have a deep, balanced squad with a solid structure, a significant number of players close to, or on, top form and also playing with confidence. They have a point to prove from last season which should drive them.
The attitude and mentality will have to be right though.
They will understand that if they are even a fraction off Cork have enough to beat them. Once the work rate and accuracy is as it has been for the last few weeks they have the quality to go and win the game then. We often used an expression before big championship games: ‘Earn the right to play, then play’.
The hard yards, the hard work and winning the 50-50 battles earn a team the right to play. Once these are being attended to the best teams go and play and do what they do best.
For Cork to win they will need to match Kerry’s work rate, reduce unforced errors and, crucially, force Kerry long with their kickouts. Kerry’s backs have been impressive and effective attacking in droves repeatedly in the last two games.
Winning most of their own kickouts has allowed them to burn most of their energy in a positive way driving the team on. If suddenly you are losing your own kickouts and these players are on the back foot and being forced to defend, that will rob Kerry of an important weapon.
Along with Walsh and O’Hanlon, Cork have plenty of other big bodies as options out the field such as Ian Maguire, Ruairí Deane and Kevin O’Driscoll and they will fancy disrupting the Kerry restarts if forced long and the middle third becomes a battleground. This will be intriguing to watch particularly if the conditions are tricky, as is forecast.
With all of that said, I expect Kerry to win. The manner and margin of the victory is much harder to predict though.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they won by one after a tight physical battle, with free-taking or the subs being the difference. Nor would it surprise me if Kerry win by a much wider margin, after a more comfortable day out.
Either way, for David Clifford and co the bare minimum will suffice.
