Enda McEvoy: Kingston’s men had their hands on the wheel and still contrived to lose
JOB DONE: Henry Shefflin celebrates Galway’s win. Photo: Daire Brennan / Sportsfile
Cork left it behind them
Let’s play a little game of On Another Day, shall we?
On another day Patrick Collins doesn’t muff Jack Grealish’s long ball and Cork are not obliged to make up a four-point stagger almost from the off.
On another day they find the rigging two or three times in the first half instead of making a star of the man between the sticks. Eanna Murphy frequently appears jittery; Robbie O’Flynn’s early effort didn’t hop, which is always good news for a goalkeeper, and when Darragh Fitzgibbon did put a bounce on his shot Murphy made sure to get his body behind it. Moments earlier down the other end Conor Whelan had shown how to do these things. The upshot was that, by the 20th minute, Cork had registered zero goals from three attempts and Galway two goals from one.
On another day Cork translate seven or eight of their first-half wides into points and thus do not trail by five at the break. Due to the distance the sliotar travels these days bad decision making isn’t half the issue it used to be. The losers’ scoring travails on Saturday were largely down to simple, bad old-fashioned inaccuracy.
On another day one of those balls that toppled down off the upright in the closing minutes falls to a man lurking in white — let us call him the ghost of Seánie Leary — and Cork are now preparing for Croke Park on Sunday week.
On another day Cork do not concede as avoidable a goal as Whelan’s. Hmmm hang on a minute. Cork have spent the summer conceding goals like Whelan’s at a rate of knots. It is one of the reasons they’re not preparing for Croke Park on Sunday week.
Kieran Kingston’s men had their hands on the wheel from the fourth minute onwards and still contrived to lose. That an All-Ireland semi-final meeting with Limerick might have led to a rerun of an increasingly familiar story is neither here nor there. Teams exist to reach the business end of the championship. Cork blew it on a grand scale.
A fortnight is a long time in pol… hurling
At the final whistle Henry Shefflin went straight to Daithí Burke and hugged him. No surprise; this was a Galway victory against the head and nobody had done more to bring it about than their old hands.
David Burke contributed two points. Joseph Cooney slotted in at centre-back after Gearoid McInerney departed injured. Inside the closing 10 minutes, as Cork came with a charge, the other Burke nailed Seamus Harnedy with a pearler of a shoulder while Cathal Mannion landed successive points from distance to twice push the gap back out to three.
On an undistinguished afternoon for members of the Goalkeeping Union the Galway manager also had reason to be grateful to Éanna Murphy, who in addition to his early saves created points for Cooney and Mannion with finely calibrated puckouts in the final quarter, and Conor Whelan, who scored a goal he had no right to score and one that few other players in the country could have accomplished.
If all has not changed utterly since Croke Park a fortnight ago, enough happened on Saturday to prevent the Kilkenny man’s debut season being filed and receipted as a disaster. It would be a harsh soul indeed who’d begrudge the man his moment in the sun. Family tragedy, the Cody stuff (patently not of Shefflin’s making), the Leinster final fiasco: a venture that began in a blaze of publicity had been on the point of turning into the year from hell. Instead, Galway have made the last four and cannot be accused of underachieving. Should they lose to Limerick the worst that will be said to them is that they found their level. Nothing embarrassing about that.
The era of bloated scorelines may be over …And no harm either, sez you.
Prior to Saturday the 2022 championship had been light on highscoring shootouts. Kilkenny won the Leinster final by posting 0-22 and would have won it with 0-18. Normal time in the Munster equivalent ended 0-24 to 1-21 — considerably more respectable looking without being in any way outrageous.
Now remember what Limerick won the 2020 All-Ireland final with? 0-30. And the 2021 renewal? 3-32.
On Saturday, by way of contrast, Galway made it to half-time having raised the white flag six times, Cork and Wexford having done so seven times each. Only Clare with 0-10 reached double figures. Of late, it’s as though we’ve been De Lorean’d back to the mid-1990s; scores are harder won and breaking 20 points rather than 30 points is now the first order of business.
Aggregate points in the Galway/Cork clash amounted to 49 and in Clare/Wexford to 50. A far cry from the 60-points-plus affairs of recent seasons. Good.
The development may be nothing more than a function of general mediocrity, of Limerick coming back to the pack a little or both. That said, one should also be aware of the possibility that the champions are keeping their powder dry for Croke Park, upon which they’ll score points by the bucketload again. Yet at least for the moment hurling no longer resembles a version of basketball played with ash plants. It is less antiseptic and more visceral for it.
Clare had something left in the tank after all
Jack O’Connor allowed stride through for a goal inside 30 seconds. Rory Hayes hauled off after seven minutes. Tony Kelly missing three early frees. Peter Duggan initially no better when he took over duty on the placed balls. Rousing themselves to perform against Wexford was always going to be far harder than rousing themselves to perform against Limerick and here, as feared, was the Munster final hangover compounded by the suspensions controversy.
It took Clare until early in the second half to hit the front. Almost immediately they were required to find a second wind following Wexford’s two-goal blast. In retrospect being forced to come from behind twice was a help rather than a hindrance; having a gun put to the head tends to concentrate the mind and Brian Lohan’s troops won the closing 10 minutes 1-9 to 0-2.
An afternoon that looked like going horribly wrong ultimately went gloriously right, with Clare doing nothing to dispel the consensus that they’re the second best team in the country.
Mentally, they lack for nothing; their S&C regime is more than fit for purpose; they have, as witnessed by the interventions of Aron Shanagher and Shane Meehan, strength in depth.
Above all, they are their manager’s team. No retreat, baby, no surrender.
No obligation. Ts&Cs apply.
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